


He thinks of you often

by JeffersonStarships



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Jimmy doesnt have a family, kinda casefic, unless you count Dean and Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-07-14 17:24:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 22,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16045121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeffersonStarships/pseuds/JeffersonStarships
Summary: The last thing I can remember are deep blue eyes and shaggy, black hair against his pale face. He wasn’t… He wasn’t scared. Then he was just gone.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Few things I feel I should mention. First, the rest of the fic is not in the same tense as this. Second, I wasn't sure if I should keep the first chapter as an epilogue or split it into flashbacks, but i think it helps to get this info out before we jump into the first chapter and I go into further detail about this info dump when i need to. Also, I have an ending already all typed out and notes on how to get there, but i might make some pit stops within the fic for angst or just to explore ideas because I'm only human. Lastly, I plan on updating it every few days (most likely a few chapters at a time) because I plan for short chapters.

             He had this easy kindness that just drew people in, smiles and soft touches that spoke of untold understanding. Sam had drawn to the guy like a freaking moth to the flame, and even if I gave him crap about it, so was I. But we were just kids and he was an adult who not only believed all the unbelievable things we had to say, he helped hide us from them.

            The guy slept on his couch, so we could take the only bed, and he lined the walls with wards. At least until I got a job and we could afford a bigger place in a less expensive neighborhood. He never held it against us, hell, he seemed to flourish in that neighborhood.

            Within a few days, all the neighbors in our building knew his name because he had stopped by and helped them one way or another: held the elevator, carried their groceries, made them cookies, invited them to dinner, stopped them in the halls to talk when they were upset, calmed fussy babies. He just had this freaking ESP or something. Knew what to say and when to say it.

             His voice was as deep and graveled as they came but was also soft and caring.

            When I was about twenty, the two of us where on the roof sipping on beers after spending most of my day off working a community vegetable garden that Jimmy had been obsessing over for weeks. The sun was setting, and the golden light washed over his stupid self-satisfied face so beautifully. I can hardly recall a day his eyes had looked so blue.

             My knuckle hooked softly under his chin and I turned his kind face toward mine. If he hadn’t smiled so softly, I don’t know if I could have kissed him so tenderly.

             I hadn’t been tender my whole life, but Jimmy could do that to me. Melt me like I was made to do it.

             It wasn’t fair how much I loved him. People aren’t supposed to be so much of your world. But it was hard to fight it when the man who loved you so carefully and perfectly, cared and loved your younger brother, packed him school lunches, helped him with homework, made time for the three of us to be together in the crazy schedules he kept.

             It was hard not to give yourself away to someone you knew would never hurt you, even when you argue. Its was hard not to love him with every inch of your being. But I wish I had known I shouldn’t.

             I wish I could have seen it coming.

             We were out to lunch at his favorite dinner when he caught sight of something over my shoulder. I tried to see what he saw but there was just too much foot traffic on the street that close to Christmas.

             “What’s it?” I asked curiously.

             He smiled, shrugged guiltily, “Mind if I cut this meal short. I see someone…”

             I rolled my eyes, “Go be Superman.”

             He got up from his seat, gathered his jacket and kissed my cheek warmly, “Lois,” he whispered kindly in my ear before he was scuffling out the door only half in his jacket, looking over his shoulder to see my startled smile.

             The last thing I can remember are deep blue eyes and shaggy, black hair against his pale face. He wasn’t… He wasn’t scared.

             Then he was just gone.

             He didn’t come home that night. Or in the morning. He wasn’t at work, or at the garden. He wasn’t with friends, and he didn’t have anymore family than me and Sammy. He didn’t call all day, wouldn’t pick up his cell.

             I was in the police station screaming myself hoarse for hours before they would let me file a missing person’s record, but by then he had been gone for a whole day.

             The next few days blur together in the most despicable way imaginable. I scour the state for any trace of him. In a few cases, I actually kicked down doors and punched out a few guys. I called every number in the phonebook and threatened anyone and everyone who tried to get me to calm down.

             After a week I woke up on a motel room bed that was littered with an entire stack of printer paper from various sources: potential sighting and leads, etc. none of which will lead to Jimmy but there had been hope.

             There were ink stains on my face from were it had been laying on one of the papers. My fingers were cut up and bruised. And every muscle in my body hurt from exhaustion.

             It just hit me then like a freight train, like a hurricane, like a hand clamped around my heart. I just knew the way some people just know. Jimmy’s clock just ran up.

             I knew he had been alive before, knew and knew and knew, but I could feel him leave. Felt his link to me fade a sure as I felt my breath leave my chest. Our breaths whispering from our mouths at the same moment. For the last time.

             If there were tears, I can not recall.

             If I drove home, I don’t remember it.

             If I had died with Jimmy, I would not be surprised, but I woke up curled in the arms of my baby brother, as he cried into my shirt as we lay in Jimmy’s and my bed. And it smelled… it smelled like him.

             When finally, the cops found his body weeks later, there was hardly anything left of him. Animals picked him apart… or so they thought.

             And I… I don’t… I just wanted to… he… we were supposed to…

             I didn’t take it every well.


	2. Chapter 1

            “Dean,” Sam called up the stairs. “We got company!” As if I didn’t already know.

            The demon at my back chuckled softly then pressed me harder against the wall his boney elbow digging into my spine like a knife, or maybe it was a knife, actually. Either way, it makes me hiss through clenched teeth. “Shh, shh,” the demon cooes, “Don’t want to bring Little Sammy into this.”

            “Dean,” Sam’s voice demands, a lot closer than it had been before and the demon startles.

I had just enough time to get a better foothold and throw my weight backwards, and sure my arm popped loudly as it left its socket, but the demon was smashed into the porcelain sink and mirrored medicine cabinet and its grip faltered on both me and my knife in its hand.

            Slipping from its hold, I grab my demon killing knife from my where is fell and turned just in time to plunge it to its hilt in its chest as the demon in the man, made an attempt to retrieve his knife. He sparked inside his meat suit before he died loudly.

            The bathroom door smashed open as Sam burst in, “Jesus Christ, Dean,” he frowned as he saw my dislocated arm and the darkening bruise on my chin where the demon had thrown a sucker punch.

            “Yeah, yeah,” I growled standing and turning my injured arm toward Sam, “Can’t leave me alone for a moment. Just shut your trap and help me out here.”

            Sam rolled his eyes and holstered his knife before he took hold of me, “On three-“ he popped the arm back in place.

            A grant soliloquy of curses falls from my mouth in a rush of gritted whispers before I forced the pain away from the front of my mind.

            Regaining my footing, I peek out into the hall, “How fucked are we?” I asks as I step out.

            “Took down two down stairs, but there is at least two more outside.” Sam follows, like a good brother, down the stairs.

            “And why aren’t they in here?”

            “I don’t know, Dean,” Sam huffs sarcastically “Maybe they like dramatic timing.”

            “Well, The Bitch ain’t up there,” I growl.

            “So, it’s a trap?”

            “But they’re waiting outside?”

            “Good as place as any to tell us how screwed we are,” Sam shrugs.

            “It does freakin’ stink in here,” I stalk to the window and risk a peek, “Wanna play their game and go talk to them?” Three figures shadow around the Impala.

            “As opposed to?”

            I smile cheekily over my shoulder, “Go out there, fist first.”

            “That’s not really a plan, Dean.”

            Shrugging, “Is too if you don’t think too hard.”

            “Let’s just get it over with.” Sam charges out the door with his knife and I’m not even a moment behind.

            Maybe it is a testament to how long we have been hunting that we don’t really stop to think about it more. Maybe it is a testament to how deep demon hate runs. Or maybe this is just a that both of us are lashing out.

            My soul is destined for hell. I just couldn’t take losing Sammy, he was all I had left. Even if I only have a few weeks left on this year, I’d never regret bringin’ Sam back. But that doesn’t mean I ain’t pissed about dying.

            Sam, well, he might be a little more than pissed, at a lot more than just at the world.

            Either way the demons by the car don’t really get a chance to do more than look up before two huge men are tackling them and sticking them with knives that light them up like Edison’s deranged nightmare.

            I dust himself off and wipe knife blood on the jeans of the last demon before slipping it back in my boot. “I think we got to salt and burn that bitch,” I can’t help but growl when Sam walks passed to open the passenger side door.

            “Maybe she didn’t know,” Sam reasons as he slides in. “She’s not a psychic, maybe they moved her after Ruby found her.”

            “She’s the most unreliable eye in the sky we have ever had, Sam,” I pull open my door and it creaks as I slam it closed behind me. I jam keys in the ignition before starting it. “We should just salt and burn before she walks us into a trap again.”

            “We made a deal,” Sam nearly shouts. “She gives us info and we don’t burn her unless she goes vengeful.”

            The car peels out as I point it in the direction of our motel, and no one can call me impolite because I poignantly do not point out that Sam has been trying to weasel me out of this demon deal left and right. Instead, I jab at something less painful for the both of us, “You just don’t want to burn her because you got the hots for her.”

            There is some light sputtering before Sam manages, “She’s helpful, that’s it. We wouldn’t have the design for the demon killing knives if she hadn’t given it.”

            “Admit it,” I tease, “You want to pork a ghost.”

            “Dean!”

            “You got an ectoplasm kink, don’t ya?” The look on Sam’s face: prissy disdain, makes my life worth living. I laugh loud and long and at the end I can see a hint of a smile playing on the edges of my brother’s mouth even as he turns to pout out his window. “Its okay, Sammy. I won’t tell anyone.”

            “Jerk,” Sam finally smiles.

            “Bitch.”

 

 .:.

 

 

            We pull off the highway and park the car before I go to the trunk, Sam beelines it for our room to grab our stuff and leaves the summoning to me. Opening the warded box in the warded truck, I grab the small bundle of bone wrapped in a leather pouch trapped inside and that’s it.

            Then, it’s just waiting in the car for Sam to get back from returning the room key and for Ruby to get her ghost ass to the human plane ASAP.

            She racks her knuckles on my window and I unlock the doors for her. She slips into the back seat. “Nasty shiner you got there, Winchester,” she remarks.

            “Zip it, Casper,” I grumble.

            “The charm it baffling.” She rolls her eyes, but then Sam opens the back door to shove duffel bags on the floor boards and she perks up. “Hey Sam.”

            “Ruby,” Sam acknowledges, but he smiles when he gets into his seat and I restart the car, but don’t pull out from the parking spot yet.

            “By Dean’s gruffness I take it Mission: Find Lilith didn’t go as planned?”

            Sam turns in his seat to see her better, “Any word where she might have gone?”

            She shakes her head in my rear view and I hate that I can only see honesty in her big brown eyes. Believing she could, and would, backstab us would be better for everyone. Sam doesn’t need to fall for this dead broad, no matter how corporal the girl can get, it doesn’t mean she isn’t a ghost. It doesn’t mean she won’t hurt Sam when she has to go.

            I have to go regardless, and Sam will have to deal. But if he doesn’t fall for Ruby, it is one less heartbreak. One less in the sea of them he has to live through.

            In one of the duffels, a cell starts ringing, and Ruby takes in upon herself to rummage through them to find it, handing it off to Sam.

            “Bobby,” he answers, “What’s up?” There is a hint of gruff voice before Sam is glancing over to me, “We’re a ten-hour drive- Yeah, I hear you, Bobby. We’re on our way.” Sam slips his phone back in his pocket. “Bobby needs some help-“

            “Does that mean I don’t have to do looking for Lilith again?” Ruby sounds all too chipper to bail out on this suicide mission, and I couldn’t agree more.

            I dart an irritated glance at Sam, who pulls a bitch face, “We _are_ going to keep pursuing Lilith. But we gotta pit stop at Bobby’s so he doesn’t try to face whatever he is dealing with on his own.”

            Me and Ruby sigh at the same time, which irritates me even more, “Get out of here, Blood Mary,” I snip, “Go find the demon whose gonna ride my ass to hell.”

            She laughs easily, but then she leans over the back rest of the front seat and kisses my cheek, “As you say, Boss.” Then she is gone.

            “Sonofabitch!” I shudder full bodily and wipe at my cheek. “She left spit all over me.”

            But Sam just laughs.

            “That is not funny, Sam. Her spit is ectoplasm!”

            Sam laughs a little harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive my blatant lack of knowledge of the amount of pain a dislocated shoulder entails. Let's just ignore it- Its a very healthy frame of mind, i assure you. :) 
> 
> Leave a kudos or comment. I would love feedback, constrictive or otherwise.


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand now we have landed in the angst-catalyst chapter for my little fic here. Enjoy! :)

            A few hours later, Sam is asleep, and my shoulder is killing me. Plus, our dinner of truck stop beef jerky and chips has me feeling a bit greasy, and a lot hungry again. Plus, I could really use some pain killers, hot coffee and maybe some pie. Aw man, pie…

            I keep my eyes open and exit at the next gas station.

            I think about waking Sam but decide against it. If he sleeps now, he can drive later. Though I hate the idea of giving up enough control, to let my baby brother drive my Baby, the love of life, but Sam has to learn to drive her right (with all the skill and dexterity required by a woman of her caliber) before I am gone and hopefully he doesn’t douche her up too much.

            I head into the Quick Stop, but something is off the moment I step foot inside.

            First off, the store is completely empty. No cashier behind the counter or stocking the shelves, but the front door was unlocked.

            “Hey,” I call, but the answer I gets is pants-shittingly terrifying.

            The shelves- the walls - hell, the whole building shakes as an earsplitting sound explodes around me.

            It might have sounded something like jingling bells if it hadn’t also sounded like a carrier jet falling from the sky. Hands over my ears aren’t enough to block out the bone deep ringing.

            Startlingly, the sound is gone in an instant, but by then I’m on my knees and a little blood has leaked from one of my ears.

            “Sam!” I shout, worry shining bright in my mind and then I’m rushing out to the Impala. There is a figure standing in front of her with their back turned to me. All I can make out is a freaking tan trench coat and a black crop of hair, but the air around the guy is strange, as if the early morning light can’t pass through it like it should. He ain’t human. No way- no how.

            My knife is a reassuring weight as I stalk to the man, “Hey, pal!” and that catches his attention. His head tilts, then he’s turning- I lunge, knife first.

            It sinks deep into the stranger’s chest, as does my heart into my stomach.

            Because I am nose-to-nose with the bluest eyes…

             “Jimmy?” the name sounds broken and tormented and couldn’t have been uttered by my mouth.

            With a newly found inability to control of myself, I stumble back a few steps before my legs give out and I’m on my ass. Just looking up- _staring_ up at him.

            The man is wearing scuffed shoes and a tan trench coat over a deep blue suit with a white button up and baby blue tie, nothing that Jimmy would wear. His black hair is wild and a bit too long but his eyes- his face- he hasn’t aged a day. It’s been years- eight of the most grueling years of my life. As much as it couldn’t be him, I know his face, know it couldn’t be anyone else.

            But there is a demon killing blade buried in his chest and Jimmy didn’t even flinch. He looks down at the knife as he pulls it from his chest and no blood seeps from the wound. His blue eyes squint at the thing before he’s focusing down on me. “Hello Dean.”

            His voice- his voice!

            I can’t hold it together. “Jimmy?” my voice breaks and tears weep from my eyes.

            A little bit of pity passes over Jimmy’s face as he kneels at my feet. He holds out the knife like an offering, “My name is Castiel. I am an angel of the lord.”

            My hand reaches past the knife to find Jimmy’s face. A light stubble is on his jaw and my fingers tips graze over the devastatingly familiar feeling. “You’re not real.”

            His brow furrowed, “You remember my vessel?”

            Everything in me turns cold.

            “…Vessel?”

            I launch myself at him and sending my knife clattering it the floor, but it’s like hitting brick. He is like stone under my hands as they grip and tear at his jacket and shirt. “Are you _wearing_ Jimmy like a meat suit?”

            “I am occupying my true vessel, James Novak,” the thing wearing Jimmy seems confused. “He was a devote man and agreed to let me occupy his body in return for my guarantee that no harm would come to you or your brother, Sam.”

            “No harm- Sam died!- You took Jimmy away from me! You get the hell out of him you piece of shit! You give him back to me!” All of this would probably been at least a tad frightening if I hadn’t had a constant stream of tears rolling down my cheeks, or if my voice hadn’t shattered around me like glass, or if the monster inside Jimmy didn’t make him feel like he was made of cement not flesh and bone.

            But Jimmy was in my hands. He was _right_ here. He was alive and breathing and even if this _thing_ is wearing him, Jimmy is right here, right now, and my arm hurts way to fucking much for this to be dream. I’m so confused and so happy and so angry, I could explode.

            I throw myself against him, trying to pin him down, but he doesn’t give an inch.

            The thing just watches me with concerned and confused eyes, “Jimmy seemed quite sure you would have forgotten about him.”

            Those words… they break me.

            How could I? In what universe would I- could I ever forget him?

            All the fight gives out on me, and I’m falling back on my ass, but my hands are still tangled in his shirts.

            Then, it’s just quiet. More tears than have ever breeched my eyes have slid down my cheeks in the last few moments and I feel myself slowing them down, as tingling numbness pulses stronger and stronger inside of me. My arm hurts stronger than ever and Jimmy’s eyes are so blue they look like they’re glowing in the early morning light.

            I can’t look away, even as I steel myself against him, as my mind packs every trace of myself that his name is stamped on into a small little box. His eyes are decorated with light crow’s feet, a side effect of never wearing his stupid glasses. His jaw is scratchy from missing one or two days of shaving. His pale cheeks are still a pale from the continued rain fall that year even when he spent all his available time out in the garden

            “Dean,” he says softly, but not kindly, more like a warning.

            Then the Impala’s door is opening with a signature squeak and Sam is stepping out. “Dean?” The thing turns to Sam as he comes around to the front of the car, “What are you- Oh my god!”

            The thing stands, leaving me a mess on the pavement. “Actually, my name is Castiel. I am an angel of the lord.”

            He is met with stunned silence. Then a whisper, “Jimmy?” Sam looks on the verge of confused tears.

            The thing huffs exasperatedly, “I see you two need time to process, I shall return.” Then he just disappears into thin air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a few more chapters already written and lined up (They could use another look through, though.), but this one is one of my favorites. This chapter was my initial inspiration for the rest of the fic, as a little FYI. I don't know if I could have ever talked myself into writing a Dean-Cas slash without it, because honestly, I don't know if I have a Dean voice as internalized as is required to write a fic in his voice. Also, there is just so many absolutely amazing Dean/Cas fics out there it's intimidating.
> 
> Anywhozers, I hope you liked it. Leave a kudos or comment, I'd love to hear what you think.


	4. Chapter 3

            Neither of us move at first, shock and confusion like lead weights in our boots.

            My chest is still tight and my breathing a bit hollow when Sam moves toward me, picks up my knife and takes hold of my fucked-up arm. “Jesus Christ, Sammy!” I yell even as he pulls me up to my feet regardless.

            “I’m sorry,” he mumbles a little too freakin’ late, with a mortified yet dazed expression.

            “Whatever,” I grunt as I pull free of him and sit on the edge of the hood as I rub at my throbbing shoulder. “Just go get me some pain meds and we can Speed Racer our asses out of here.”

            Sam looks just as stiff and wonky as I feel, so I don’t judge him too harshly as he hobbles over to the sliding door just as it opens, an employee walking out.

            “Need a pump?” he asks with fake kindness.

            It takes me a second too long, “Yeah, man. Thanks.”

            He fills the tank and Sam pays inside.

            I am behind the wheel when Sam comes back. “Hell no,” he says instantly, opening the driver’s side door and trying to push me over. “No way you’re driving! You’ve been up for 48 hours.”

            “Beat it!” I yell with unwarranted venom, which just makes Sam shove at me harder.

            “Stop trying to be big brother or whatever the hell you’re doing. You’re going to drive us into a ditch or something.”

            “Sam!” I take a swing at him, somewhere in the mid-section, but don’t have the best angle or strength with my hurt arm, and Sam deflects it.

            “Dean!” Sam takes a strong hold of my shoulder, his fingers digging in painfully, and I hiss as he uses his hold to push me into the passenger seat.

            He gets behind the wheel and throws the plastic bag in his hand at me. A bottle of pain reliever and a freaking sling are inside it. “What the hell is this?!”

             Sam’s head thunks against the steering wheel, exasperation practically radiating off the guy. Then he leans over to grab Ruby’s bones from the glove box. She is there in a second, tapping on Sam’s window and he unlocks the back doors.

            I face myself out my window and shove some pain meds down my throat, but the look on my face must be some kind of scary because Ruby’s mouth clicks shut, and she doesn’t say the greeting at the tip of her tongue.

            The engine roars to life and Sam steers us away from the gas station.

            Deep inside of myself, I feel around for the box I had stored all my feeling about finding Jimmy again and start packing in all my general feelings for Jimmy in there too. The good and the vulnerable, because I can’t afford to break apart like that again.

            I am lucky that thing wasn’t looking to kill right then, or me and Sam would be dead.

            My initial attack with the demon knife may not have worked but that is no reason to give up. I should have kept going at the thing. What use was all the training I went through with Dad and Bobby and all the other hunters if I was just going to go belly up when any old demon shows up wearing someone I love.

            A light touch brushes at my hurt shoulder and I flinch, turning to Ruby who looks apologetic, “We were trying to get your attention.”

            Sam is back on the highway, headed toward Bobby’s. “That thing,” he asks, “He said he was an angel?”

            “S’what he fucking said,” I growl.

            Everyone one of Sam’s sympathy cylinders ignite as he sighs out a “Dean-“

            “Don’t ‘Dean’ me Sam! We could have died back there. I stuck it with the knife and it didn’t do squat."

            Sam’s face scrunches for a minute as he analyzes my statement in his big nerd brain or whatever. “You… stabbed it with the knife?”

            I nod, “Right in the heart, man, didn’t even flinch.”

            “If he’s strong enough,” Ruby interjects, “the knives may not work.”

            Rage boils my blood and my jaw is clenched as I spit out, “Some heads up would have been nice-“

            “That’s if it is even a demon,” She adds quickly, “If it really is an angel, I mean, that knife isn’t going to have a chance in hell.”

            “Whatever the fuck that thing was,” I say, “It couldn’t be an angel.”

            Sam glances sideways at me, “Just because you haven’t seen one, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

            I could punch him. I really could. I could cold clock him and no one could stop me. If he wasn’t driving my fucking car, I would. Instead, I sink down in my seat and bite my lip so hard it bleeds. “We’ve been around the block, Sam,” I try, “You really think that angels could have been around this whole time and we wouldn’t have seen or even heard of them?”

            Ruby shifts in her seat, and Sam frowns.

            “You ever seen an angel, Ruby?” I ask and see her face darken.

            “You know I haven’t.”

            “Never? Not in all your years on earth and in the veil?” The car fills with energy, the kind that only a pissed off ghost can produce.

            “No, but-“

            “You would know,” I tell her. “You’ve been around a long ass time, and if you haven’t seen it. Then it doesn’t exist.” Ruby’s face is red hot.

            “Um, Dean-“ Sam warns, but Ruby keeps her cool.

            “It’s called faith, Dean,” She grits. “Ever heard of it?”

            “Faith,” I laugh harshly. “Yeah right. What has the big G ever done for me?”

            “Miracles. He’s given you miracles-” Ruby hisses, “He gave you life. He gave you your mother and father- gave you your brother-“ Sam tries to interject but she talks over him, “Love, Dean, is a miracle! Loving anyone, and anyone loving you, is a miracle.”

            “That is the sappiest shit I have ever heard,” but even I can hear the uncertainty in my voice compared to her complete conviction.

            “Dean,” Ruby’s voice softer now, “Jimmy was a mir-“

            “No.” I say solidly, turning out my window to glower in peace, “Just… no.” I smack the radio dial and loud music I’m too distracted to pin point cuts the conversation cold better than I ever could.


	5. Chapter 4

            The static charge in the air lessens the more miles we put between us and that conversation. No one talks for miles and miles and I go back to stuffing all my emotions into the right boxes, stuffing my rage into a neat little place that I can access when I need it, but isn’t right at the surface.

            By the time we pull up to Bobby’s, Ruby is off looking around for any mention of a “Castiel” and Sam has talked me into the sling.

            I don’t even make it up the first step before Bobby has a sour face, “Get your butt to bed, Boy,” He orders.

            “Come on,” I whine, “I couldn’t sleep if I wanted.”

            “Didn’t ask if you wanted,” he says gruffly, “Just go do it.”

            Even if I wanted to argue, Bobby just stalks away with Sam to his library leaving me in the doorway.

            “I missed you too!” I call as I close the door and stomp up the stairs muttering to myself, “Oh, I’m just peachy thanks for asking. How are you? Oh, you need help on a job? Well, you should have called, I would have driven from two states over in the middle of the night.”

            I push my way into the spare room which is flooded with boxes from the last time we were on the hunt for some old summer clothes.

            “Oh,” I continue as throw my sling on the bedside table then I peel out of jacket and shirt with one or two pained grunts, “You heard I ran into the love my life with a creature stuffed so far up his ass he felt like a freaking statue? Yeah, sure it was difficult, but them’s the breaks huh? You fall in love, they die and every evil creature on the face of the planet uses it against you until you die too.” I kick out of my shoes and pants. Then, flop into the bed, covering my eyes with the sling to block out the light.

            “Oh boy, his eyes were blue… you should have seen them... They were just how I remember them.... Bluer than that time I got hit with that Djin juice…”

 

.:.

 

            Honestly, I don’t know what time I wake up. It feels like the next day but the light filtering in the dusty window is pale and white. The moon peeking out from behind the curtains.

            The sheets of the spare bed are scratchy under my cheek and my arm is still throbbing in time with my pulse, but it feels too distant to be real. As is my brian realizes it should hurt, but it doesn’t really feel a thing.

And if I really think about it, I don’t think there is supposed to be a full moon tonight.

I realize I’m dreaming like a fog lifting. But instead of the room suddenly becoming clearer, it just feels foggier. It wobbles at the edges. Like I’m looking at it through tear stained eyes.

            There is a weight in the edge of my bed, Jimmy is perched at the foot it with a thousand-yard stare. His eyes tracing the constellations in the stars out the window.

I push myself up and sit beside him resting my weight on my elbows as I lean on my knees, but he doesn’t stir.

            His eyes continue to stare out the window, but he isn’t moving otherwise, not even breathing.

            There is a world of questions I want to ask, a world of words I want to hear, but he’s just a figment of my imagination. A lie my mind wants me to believe.

            When his eyes turn to mine, the blue depths are the right color, and it makes me smile faintly. “How old are you?” Jimmy asks, and I can’t answer, don’t want to.

            “No,” I shake my head.

            “How old was I?”

            “No.”

            He turns back to the window, there are tears in his eyes, “It’s fitting, isn’t? To meet somewhere in the middle?”

            “This isn’t the middle,” I growl.

            He frowns, and it is so much sadder than confused. “We could pretend.”

            “You’re dead. Been dead for years.”

            Tears spill over his lids, “But you love me?”

            I push the pain away as I stare at him. Numbness washes over me like cold water, and I’m sinking, deeper and deeper into it.

            He looks at me expectantly, but the look shatters as understanding dawns across his features.

            His fingers are calloused but kind as they cup my cheek, “You want to bury it?” He smiles softly, “Yeah right, good luck with that.”

            My voice is rough as nails, “Watch me.”


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like this chapter, and it is a long one. Enjoy! :)

            Bobby and Sam find me in the dark kitchen with my sling on (because Jesus Christ I hurt right now) and an over sugared cup of coffee that I’m using to wash down probably too many pain killers, but what doesn’t kill you, makes you hurt less.

            “You’re up early,” Sam comments as he flips on the light that I nearly want hiss at, but then he pushes me out of the way to fix himself a cup.

            “Watch it,” I growl pulling myself up to sit on the counter with one arm.

Once I’m relatively more comfortable, I ask “What I miss?”

            “Demons been turning up dead,” Bobby says simply and settles in a chair.

            “By the hundreds, apparently,” Sam adds barely a hint of sugar to his cup and takes a drink.

            “We sure its demons?” I ask, taking a sip of black as tar coffee with enough sugar to almost guarantee diabetes- just as the coffee gods demand.

            “Pretty sure,” Sam shrugs,

            Bobby pulls out his flask and relieves it of a swig. “Rufus was chasing down a lead on cattle deaths and lightning storms. Stumbled on a warehouse full of bodies reeking of sulfur, sans their peepers?”

            “What? Like someone scooped them out?” I cringe.

            “More like _burned_ them out?” Sammy corrects and pours a second cup of coffee, leaving it black as he hands it off to Bobby who squints as he hides his flask in his jacket pocket as if Sam might take it away.

            “Look, I’m still workin’ on it,” Bobby interjects, “We aren’t walking into anymore death traps-“ He turns a stink eye at me like I had personally planned to go after Lilith. “We just need more info about this mess before we go rushing in. I called you here because there’s a werewolf pack a few counties over and, frankly, I need a hand.”

            “Full moon soon?” I ask.

            “Two nights from now,” he answers, pausing to take a sip of his joe “Pretty sure I got the suspects narrowed down, but I don’t want to start swinging blades unless I’m sure, and have help.”

            “Got ya,” I nod and pour the remainder of my coffee down the sink, “We’re gonna need more that just the three of us,” I admit, and see Sam nearly double take, but I point at my slinged arm, turning my eyes to the floor, “It’s not my swinging arm, but it’s probably not the best idea for Gimpy to be doing any heavy lifting, at least not alone. And if there is a pack, we can’t afford for you guys to be princessing me without the real possibility one of us not walking away.”

            My eyes lift us to two stunned faces, and irritation burns bright behind my eyes and I jump down from the counter. “I can admit when we need help!” I cry defensively.

            “Yes-” Bobby frowned.

            “You just usually don’t though,” Sam finished for him.

            A growl rips through my throat and I stalk out the kitchen and out the backdoor grumbling, “Screw you guys.”

           

.:.

 

            As sun pulls over the horizon, I’m already elbow deep under Baby’s hood. She had needed an oil change and a tune up and I had needed to occupy my hands. Something my mind could chew on in its familiarity and not something that threatened to destroy me.

But sometimes it seems my mind wants to destroy itself, because I am tightening a slightly lose bolt when I vaguely remember a second pair of hands working alongside mine. I try to ignore it, but the longer I go, the more I start to recognize them.

            At first, I could see them as my father’s. His deep timber showing me everything I needed to know. Showing me finesse and precision in the purr of an engine being repairing, a beast we were bringing back to life. It was moments of soft words and patience, though our lives had never allowed it elsewhere.

If only… if only he could have cared enough. If only he could have loved us enough to let us stay out this life. Let us be children. If only he had enough patience in the rest of our lives to understand we didn’t want to- couldn’t- live like he had wanted.

            But then the hands change, and they are the soft, small hands of Sammy as he stands on a milkcrate.

            His eyebrows knit as I show him what’s what. Show him those small moments our father could not bring himself to show, even if he deserved them more than anything in the world. I show him a soft voice, kind encouragement. Let him revel in the slow work as it we fix and heal our home. The only home he knows. The closest to home he has ever gotten to remember.

            It’s unfair.

            He has never known the soft domesticity of waking up to a mother who holds you when you cry, kisses your cheeks as she tickles you, knows how make you smile with just a whisper. He’s never known the warmth of being loved by a parent who say they love you and sing you to sleep.

            I could never be enough. I could never compare to having a mother- to having a whole family- to having a normal life. Though I gave him everything I could, even my eternal soul, I know I could never give him enough.

            So, I show him this.

            He learns to tighten and replace and readjust. Learns that learning can be kind, can wait for him to catch up, won’t push or pull or yank him into position. He learns that he can love to learn.

            The hands change, and Sam is just as tall as me and it’s like our visions are aligning. He’s working at the same time I am, only on a completely different repair. He sees me, and I see him. Maybe it’s time I realize I might not have anything else to teach. He’s probably better than me with a wrench, maybe even better on a job.

When it comes down to it, we just know what we have to do. We work together better than all the parts of the machine under our fingers.

            Then the hands change, and I know them so, so bittersweetly well as I cover them with my rough calluses as I show them how to hold a wrench for the first time. The fingers are stronger than my own, but they are inexperienced in this. But he makes me laugh as he asks strange questions, ones I’m not sure if he really cares for the answers to or is just asking to make me smile. It doesn’t matter either way, because I keep walking him through the steps anyway. Whispering in his ear and touching him every chance I get because I need to. I need him to understand.

            He’s touching my heart as he glides his fingers over well-polished chrome. He’s uncovering the path of my veins as he traces wires and belts. He’s divining my gentleness in the care I take to show him my home, the only one I have left to share.

            The only thing other than Sam I have to protect. But he deserves to know.

            I had wanted to show him everything.

            But then the vague impression of a second pair of hands is gone and my vision has misted over.

            I turn away from Baby and wiping the corners of my eyes with my shoulder as I scrub my filthy hands in the deep-basin, plastic sink in Bobby’s workshop, my heart so tight in my chest it feels like I might suffocate.

            There is light knock on the workshop door and Jo pulls open the door with a grunt as I look over expecting Sam or Bobby, but still not ready to face her as much as I wasn’t ready for them.

“Woah, what crawled up your craw?” She smirks, leaving the door as she rounds the car and perches herself on a precarious stack of rusted paint cans by the sink.

            I shrug indiscriminately and search for a rag to wipe my hands on, avidly avoiding eye contact. “Bobby call you and your folks over for the werewolf thing?”

            “Sure did,” she replies picking up and throwing a relatively clean rag my way from the floor.

            “Thanks.”

            “Yeah. Whatever makes you stop making your face looked so pinched.” She huffs crossing her arms but adds, “We were expecting a little more traffic than we caught, been a lot of lightning storms recently.”

            The change of topic unrestricts my chest and I turn up to meet her eye finally, “Bobby’s got an idea that the storms are a part of something big, I guess.”  

            “I heard. Also heard something about Jim-“ her voice dies as I shoot her a purely scathing look, all my barely there ease quickly replaced with furious irritation.

            She blinks before rocking back on her seat a bit, rubbing the back of her neck defensively as she whistles between her teeth. “OK,” she mumbles to herself, turning away “Guess that is a no talkie subject then.”

            “Sam had no right to tell you about that,” I growl and throw down the rag. I move over to Baby and close her up, slamming the hood.

            “He’s worried, Dean. He has every right to be. Jim-“ I shoot another scathing look and she huffs and rolls her eyes, getting to her feet, “Some guy claiming he’s an angel shows up out of the blue wearing _someone_ \- who we all though was dead by the way!- there’s a good reason to ask around.”

            “He’s _not_ an angel, Jo.” I berate.

            She rolls her eyes again, “I said he claimed he was, I never said he actually was.”

            “Anyways,” She turns on her heel and heads for the door, “Mom made lunch. Best come in and eat before she comes out here and breaks a plate over your big head for being a dumbass and working with your hands when you should be wearing a sling.”

            “Yeah, yeah.”

            Ellen, however, nearly smacks me with a plate anyway as I walk into the kitchen.

            She’s never been a big fan of mine. She prefers Sam and all his caring big eyes, and I guess I can’t blame her.

            “What do you think you’re doing out there you colossal jackass?”

            I don’t answer, just make a slightly petulant look as she throws an arm around me for an awkward embrace that just ends with her jostling my arm to prove some point or something, but I’m still so chalk full of Ibuprofen and bad memories that I hardly flinch, and she looks mildly terrified.

            I snort a laugh and turn to Sam who is parked at the kitchen table munching on a sandwich, but he looks a little concerned too, so I roll my eyes.

            “Quite the shiner you got there,” Ellen mumbles, I turn back to her. Her expert fingers gently prod at my bruised chin.

            I flinch away. I’d completely forgot that was there. “Watch it.”

            She narrows her eyes, then reaches behind her for a full plate that she jabs me in the chest with. “Eat and shut it.” she orders.

            I take the sandwich and chips happily and sit next to Sam at the table, “Thanks.” I sing and take a huge bite. And oooooh… that woman makes a mean sandwich. Who knew that ham and cheese with lettuce could make me want to moan with delight.

            “ _Dude_ ,” Sam frowns, “It’s a sandwich not your girlfriend. Could you keep it down?”

            “Man, you _wish_ your girlfriend tasted as good as this,” I say around another mouthful.

            Jo walks into the kitchen with a smirk, “I’ll have what he’s havin’ Mama.” Ellen hands her a plate and carries the last two into the living room. Jo sits with us at the table.

            “So, Sam,” she says around a mouthful of food so big it makes me proud. “How’s it hanging?”

            He curls his lip in disgust and swallows his food before he says, “You’re as bad as Dean.”

            I take another monster sized bite and say, “I don’t know what you mean.”

            He frowns harshly and turns back to Jo, “Well, at least you aren’t a huge pain in the ass about everything.”

            “Hey!” I shrug defensively.

            “Dean, you won’t even admit he _might_ be an ang-“

            “Sam!” I yell, throwing down my sandwich, and pierce him with a stare so dark it’s practically hellfire. We are NOT having this conversation in from of Jo.

            He glares back, “He-“

            I push away from the table noisily and abandon my food as I growl, “I’m taking a shower.”


	7. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just gonna drop down some chapters, which probably need more proof reading, but it makes me feel accomplished to post something so I'm gonna post everything I got while I write the rest. Hope you like it. :)

            I’m not sure how it happens, but somehow- against all odds- there is hot water in the old piece of shit water heater Bobby keeps meaning to replace and I get my shower.

            Without a doubt, I don’t see his eyes staring over my shoulder when I glance at the mirror as I brush my teeth and check on my darkly bruised jaw, and I don’t hear his voice as I pull open the window to help ventilate the steam out of the small space, nor do I wish that I did. But… I kinda do.

            And I wish that I didn’t feel so hollowed out by it.

            It feels like grieving, and I have never been good at that.

            I wish there was a box inside of myself large enough to encase that universe of sorrow, but even in my imagination, such a thing is unheard of. But I’m going to keep saying I’m okay until I am- scream it at the top of my lungs if I have to. And no one’s gonna say his name. And the next time I see him, I’m pulling the trigger first and asking questions after.

            And if I’m not okay now, anger and irritation have always stood strong in their steeling properties.

            After my shower, I grab my pistol and a few of the guns in the trunk that need to be taken apart, cleaned and reoiled because that is safe and something to do with my hands. Something I can do in my sleep and one handed, which is good because Ellen looks ready to combust when I unload everything on the coffee table to begin.

            Jo steps over to lend a hand to appease her mother. “Jesus Christ, I think you’re going to give my mom an aneurism.”

            “I’m cleaning guns, not bench-pressing pain cans.”

            She cracks a smile and bites her lower lip as she checks over her shoulder to see her mom leaving the door way to move farther down the hall. We work in a quiet for a few minutes before she looks up again, “So, I met Ruby.”

            I snort, “You mean Sam’s girlfriend.”

             “Yeah,” She grunts, “ _That’s_ what I wanted to picture. Ghost on Sasquatch brain porn.”

            I can’t help my smile, “What she stop by for?”

            “Humping?” Jo giggled.

            “ _Dude_.”

            “No seriously,” she smirked, “I think she was flirting with me.”

            “Awesome, can I watch?”

            Her cheeks burn bright red before she gets control of herself then she says, “You, Dean Winchester, are on your own now.” She throws down a pistol barrel, “I hope you’re happy.”

            “Ecstatic,” I shoot her a particularly stunning smile.

            She rolls her eyes but leaves until she comes back with Sam, who has downloaded a few movies on his laptop.

            I finish up cleaning to the sound of machine gun fire as the Terminator defends Sarah and John Connor in T2, then push myself into the couch beside Sam and Jo.

            Ruby shows up when Sam starts The Matrix and she lounges nearly on top of Jo, who hardly protests once Ruby offers to curve the demon killing sigils into a knife some time for her.

            I politely don’t mention how jealous Sam looks at that. Instead I just lean into his side and feign innocence when he looks over, concentrating at the tv screen with a half-hidden smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter, next one is longer I promise.


	8. Chapter 7

            That night, after all the movies and a quick dinner, Ellen and Jo took the spare room, and I let Sam take the couch, opting to crash out on the window seat.

            The house was quiet, but not the easy quiet of earlier in the day.

It was dark. The only light was the moon pushing through the curtains every time the rotating fan passed my direction.

            I didn’t need to recognize the cadence of his loud, mouth breathing to know Sam wasn’t asleep, and I could feel his eyes on me. I also didn’t need to look over to see the worry and sadness in his eyes, I could feel it growing in the air between us. I could nearly feel it like a heavy pillow sliding over my face and suffocating me.

            I know he wants to talk- he always wants to talk- but I won’t look at him and give him that permission.

            We don’t need to talk- we don’t need to have this conversation again. The same conversation we have every time we met eyes: he doesn’t want me to go. He doesn’t want me to die.

            He wants me to admit I’m hurting or to talk about Jimmy or the thing possessing him, but everything dies.

            Hell, even if we weren’t a few weeks off from my ass being dragged to hell, the odds are still in the favor of me dying before I get gray hair. It’s in our job description- It’s in our life description. If your life was a book, the title would be ‘Died too Young.”

            Little does he know that dying like _this_ , dying for _him_ , it’s the best way I can think of to go out. Better than passing in my sleep.

            And whatever is possessing Jimmy is going to die too. We just need to learn more about it.

            Death is the only constant.

            It will die, I will die, just like how Dad died, in a blaze of glory.

            Dad and Bill Harvell found the colt, used it on Azazel, and protected Sam and Jo from whatever plan that sick basterd had cookin’. They sacrificed themselves for us- Dad sacrificed himself for me and Sammy.

            But his death meant more than just living, it meant we had the chance to get out of that life, and we did, despite what Dad would have wanted. I took his car and all the cash I could hustle, and we took our asses to bumfuck Tennessee and met Jimmy…

            It’s my fault we fell into this life again.

I never meant to pull Sam in- he had his own life and I _ruined_ it. I dragged him back in.

He should hate me, not want to save me.

            A sigh rattles from my mouth before I can stop it and I turn to my brother. He looks tired. Words stick in my throat, but I clear them out with another sigh, “When I’m gone-“

            “Dean-“ he tries to cut in desperately.

            “ _When_ I am gone,” I growl but sit up and turn more fully to him. “Get out. Please, Sam, this is your chance, and I want you to take it.”

            He turns to the ceiling with tears in his eyes, “Dean,” he whispers, “We can figure how to save you-“

             “I don’t want to be saved, Sam.” A chill runs up my spine, because it is just so, so true. “If it is a choice between me living and you? Its gotta be you. There ain’t nothing but you I got worth dying for.”

            Tears break from his eyes, and he turns to me, “I can’t let you sacrifice yourself for me, not you too.”

            I drop my head to my hand, “I got nothing left, Sam,” I admit and realize I have to drop all my cards if I am going to convince him- if I’m going to die, I want him to understand why. “I don’t want to hunt anymore, but I can’t go back to pretending.” I feel my breath catch and before I can release it a tear rolls down my cheek, “This whole thing with Jimmy, it just proves it to me as much as I want to, I can never get out. I got him caught in this and I can’t get him out. Even if we exercise that thing out of him, I stabbed him in the heart… He can’t walk away.”

            Sam crosses the room before I can stop him, then I’m being crushed in his embrace.

            “We can save him too,” There is so much conviction in his voice. So much hope.

            I melt into his shoulder, my fingers losing themselves in the folds of his shirt and my face burying itself in his stupid hair as tears squeeze passed my eyes. “I just want this to be over.”

            I think he gets it. I mean, he crushes me tighter in his arms and I think that means he understands that I’m worn out, dog tired, and giving up.

I can’t take it anymore, I have to let go. I _can_ let go for Sam. I can die if it means he lives. I want to, I really do.

 

.:.

 

            We hold on to each other for what feels like a lifetime, and somehow, we end up on the floor, sleeping on each other like children but I don’t give a shit. But, I only manage to fall into sleep when Sam’s gentle snoring lulls me there.

            My dream feels like a dream. All soft and cloudy and too warm. I could lose myself in it if I let myself relax, but Sam is there, and he is so _tiny_.

            He looks about ten and I’m about fourteen and we are shooting at old, empty soup cans with our dad’s gun. I’m standing back from the them, watching a tiny Sam and a young me as if I’m not a part of that world.

            Dad isn’t there and that’s a relief because that means when Sam misses, he doesn’t look like the world is collapsing on him and Dad isn’t screaming about all the whatif’s: what if he missed while on a job, what if he hit some innocent person instead, what if missing meant one of us dying.

            Instead, we had collected all our spare change to buy a bottled soda and we take a sip every time we make a shot. Being rewarded for doing good, instead of punished for doing bad.

            It’s something close to a memory. The action is about right, but we never practiced shooting for soda in the middle of the night, or in a snowy alley between buildings. Now that I’m noticing it, the cold is seeping into my bones, my leather jacket too thin to block it out.

            Looking at our surroundings, I recognize it as the back if the apartment complex we had in Tennessee. If I crane my neck, I can see the window that connects to the fire escape. If I imagine real hard, I can see blue eyes looking down into the dark.

            I walk over to the fire escape, but the ladder is gone. I can’t get up.

            He’s there but I can’t get to him.

            Soft, ringing footsteps descend the stairs on the metal contraption until I see him, wrapped in a hand knitted sweater that one of the neighbors had made him. It was charcoal gray and made his eyes seem electric in comparison.

            He squatted as he looked down the hole where the ladder used to be. He smiled brightly, “Need a boost?” He reached down, and I had to jump the catch his fingers.

            We grunted and strained as he hauled me up. I held tight and collapsed into his chest as soon as falling through the hole was no longer a risk.

            He smelled like spaghetti sauce, and I smiled. “You made dinner?”

            “I did,” He chuckled and held me as his fingers stroked through my too long hair, “You couldn’t have used the front door?”

            Plain and worry flared in my chest and I pulled him tighter. I couldn’t remember why I didn’t use the front door, or why I had been in the alley. “I don’t know.” I looked over my shoulder and to the ground below, it was as dark and empty as I suddenly felt. “Can we go back to the apartment?”

            I glanced up at him and he looked sympathetic, “Yeah, sure.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek but rose and lifted me up with him. I followed him up the narrow climb and sighed as we slipped back in the warm apartment kitchen.

            Sixteen-year-old Sam was sitting at the table with a text book and a bowl of noodles, and he glanced over with a smirk, “Forgot how to use the front door again, huh?”

            “Apparently,” I shrugged and purposefully bumped into him as I went to hang up my leather jacket.

            “Hey, watch it!” he yells as his voice crackles, “You almost made me drop some sauce on my book.”

            “Oh, what a shame that would have been,” I mock lightheartedly, and Sam tried to hide a smile behind a scowl.

            Jimmy placed a steaming piece of garlic bread in Sam’s bowl with some metal tongs, and I turn to him. Jesus Christ, I love him. Light footsteps and gentle smiles as he moved back to the stove and set down the tongs. I don’t know how I could ever get enough of him.

            My feet give me no other choice but to move toward him, my arms slip around him and my lips capture his. It feels like home. His mouth slightly shocked until he gives himself over to me and then his lips are soft and curving and moving against mine. His fingers clasping my elbows as I hold on for dear life.

            “Jeesh, get a room guys,” Sam mumbled as he scooted his chair loudly across the tiles and escaped into the living room.

            “Dean,” He whispered across my lips as he tried to pull away.

            “James,” I growl and lick into his mouth. I can feel myself shattering around him. Desperation and need screaming up my spine even as he crashed into me. His tongue lathing over mine, his teeth catching on my lips, his hips bumping perfectly against mine as I wrench him closer. His ass is in my hand, his leg hooked around mine, still longing crawls up my back and stings my eyes, so I clamp them shut.

            I lose myself in the taste of him, the smell of him, the feel, the warm, consuming love. I would walk the world for him. Scream and cry and beg for the rest of my life for him. I could be anyone- anything he asked of me. But he never asked, he gave and gave and gave. He melted me down to just my base components and I could feel his fingers in me rebuilding me, making me a better man. I wanted to be that for him. I could! I could! I could be that for him.

            He pulled away breathless, his arm still around me and cupped my cheek with the other when I tried to close the distance again, “Dean,” he whispered, “You’re crying.”

            My eyes fluttered open and was surprised to find Jimmy blurry behind tears. “Jim-“ my throat clenched, and a sob threatened to rack through me. I tried so hard to fight it I stopped breathing.

            “Dean,” he kissed softly as my jaw. “Dean Dean Dean Dean Dean.” He kissed a trail across my cheeks and over my eyebrows. “What’s wrong Dean?” He asked against my forehead.

            The sob broke out of me and I fell into him as my knees buckled.

            With his arms around me, we slowly lowered to the floor.

            “Please, God,” I prayed into his sweater. “Please please please, God. _Please_.”

            “You’re scaring me,” Jimmy whispered with pure anguish in his voice and I felt the pain of it sear through me like a white-hot lance.

            “You’re not coming back!” I hacked into his shoulder. “I want to keep you. Oh, god. I don’t want you to go!”

            “Dean-“

            “I don’t want to live without you, Jim. I hate it. I hate every second!”

            I felt his tears gather in my hair and he nuzzled into it. “I’m not going anywhere- I’m right here-”

            A huge sob ripped through my chest and I couldn’t speak anymore. Every time I tried to make the words come out another sob exploded out of me and I couldn’t.

            I felt another pair of arms wrap around me, as Sam’s voice lulled into my ear. “It’s okay Dean, We’re here, we got you.” His face pressed against my back and his legs curled into my side. “Shh, it’s okay.”

            “I’m so sorry, Sam-“ I tried, but he shushed me again, and nuzzled closer.

            “It’ gonna be okay, we’re going to take care of you.”

            I wanted to tell them they couldn’t. I wanted to tell them that I failed them, that I was the one who was supposed to protect them, but I wasn’t enough. I didn’t deserve them.

            They deserved to love someone so much better than me.

            “Shh,” Jimmy cooed and brushed a kiss to my forehead, “It’s going to be okay…”


	9. Chapter 8

            I wake in to find myself kinda shaking but can’t remember enough of my dream to begin to fathom why. Some shuffling noises catch my ear, and I turn to see Sam packing up all our stuff in the duffle bag. He throws a bottle of pain reliever for my aching shoulder into my lap, “Rise and shine, we’re heading out.”

            I pick up the pillows and fold the blankets into a pile on the couch, then head to the bathroom to change and in less than five minutes we are all out the door and heading to a motel a few counties over to set up shop and prepare a plan for the hunt.

            Bobby rides with Joe and Ellen, and me and Sam take the Impala, we are on the road to the werewolf stabbing, when Ruby appears on the side of the road with a thumb held up.

            I pull the car over and Sam lets her in. “Sup my pretties,” she smirks.

            “Just heading out for some monster murder, “ I smile at my own joke.

            Sam yawns. “Hey Ruby, what’s up?”

            She leans forward to cross her arms on the backrest, she turns her big doe eyes on me and pouts out her bottom lip. “What?” I ask suspicion growing like a weed in my good mood.

            “Promise not to be mad?” she asks, “I mean, no yelling?”

            “Not installing a lot of faith here, Ruby,” I warn.

            “I may have been somewhere I shouldn’t have been and seen some things that I wasn’t supposed to see… and taken some things I wasn’t supposed to.” She mumbles the last bit.

            “Oh my god,” I gripe, glancing over at her to frown, “What did you do?”

            She grins too wide but holds out a match box sized tin container. It is covered in what is either wet rust or- “That better not be blood.”

            “Well, I _did_ pull it out of a guy-“

            Sam kind of sputters, “You pulled it out of a person?!”

            “He didn’t need it! He was already dead.”

            “Do you root around in every dead guy you come across or this guy special?” I ask with a half-smile. It probably shouldn’t be funny. I really shouldn’t want to laugh.

            “Well, this thing was glowing from inside of him,” she answered, “I mean, I don’t think it killed him or anything, I’m almost positive he keeled over from the explosion.”

            “Explosion?”  I huff, “What the hell have you been do-“

            “Dean- Dean- Dean,” She repeats with a chuckle, “You DO NOT want to know, trust me. But look, I brought you a shiney thing! I’m pretty sure it’s got some kind magical mojo.”

            “I ain’t touching that thing until we know what it is,” Sam frowns prissily.

            “Fiiine,” she shrugs. “You guys are no fun. I’ll put it in the one of the hex boxes in the trunk, and you guys can find out what it is.”

 


	10. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for not updating sooner, I have rewritten this chapter an embarrassing number of times, but I think this is the best rendition so far, so I'm okay with posting it. Hope you enjoy it. :)

            We decide on a discreet motel across the street from a diner, and I send Sam out with a breakfast order as we settle in. “Eggs, hash browns, bacon and pancakes,” I list off and I head to the bathroom to pee. “And pie!” I add just before he exits.

            “Yes, Dean,” He huffs, “and pie.”

            I washed my face in the small sink and examined my bruise in the mirror. It was still dark- but it was only like thirty-six hours old, so it had every right to be, but there are dark bruises under my eyes from lack of sleep and my skin is pale in comparison… Jesus, I look like shit.

            I wonder when that happened…

            An unsettlingly familiar ringing starts in my ear and I rip open the bathroom door to find that _thing_ standing in the middle of the motel room, staring at me with his head canted to one side.

Thankfully the ringing doesn’t threaten to deafen me, and fades before I crumble to the floor. However, anger immediately explodes across me and I tear my gun from the small of back-

            “Dean,” he growls disapprovingly and crosses the space between us faster than The Flash to snatch the gun from my hand.

            “God dammit,” I hiss and stumble back a few feet into the bathroom as fear replaces my unbridled anger. I tumble onto my ass when my shoulder protests catching hold of the bathroom counter to break my fall. “Jesus Christ!”

            Deadpan, he murmurs, “Castiel.” And tosses my gun onto the closer of the two beds behind him.

            I almost laugh, I can’t think. I just feel my bones ringing sharper and sharper as a swallowing numbness leeches through me, and my shoulder screams in protesting pain as I hold my arm to my chest.

            His eyes are brighter than the sun through diamonds, and they’re staring into me, tearing me apart. “ _Castiel_ ,” I snarl.

            He sighs exasperatedly, “I don’t think I should have to tell you that violence is not the usual response to Angels, but I can guarantee it would be safer for you to refrain in the future.”

            “Angel, yeah right,” I laugh harshly

            The lights flicker on over the sink as something completely intangible fills the small space. Though it is still the middle if the day, the light from the window seems dull compared the flare of energy in front of me. 

            Something inside of me shrinks back in screaming fear and I can’t move. Can’t breathe. I feel so utterly insignificant as a shadow of a giant pair of wings too big for the space envelop the walls.

            “Dean,” he whispers.

I tear my eyes to his as he squats down just a foot in front of me to meet my eyes on the same level, the lights over the sink dying out again, and the shadows fading. Jimmy’s fingers reach out for me and I can’t flinch away. His hand takes hold of my hurt shoulder and something warm and fluid-like pours under my skin.

            The pain under his hand melts away and he draws back.

            He doesn’t say anything, he just watches me. But it’s Jimmy’s eyes and it hurts.

            Maybe, _maybe_ , this thing is exactly what it claims to be, but I don’t want to trust him when it hurts so much.

            My voice is rough but small when I ask, “Why?”

            He furrows his brow at the endless nebula of vagueness of my question.

            I clear my throat and try to sit up a little straighter, though the bathroom floor may not be the best place for this conversation. “Why Jimmy? Why him?”

            He wars something inside of him before he answers, “Fate,” he casts his eyes down, “His blood line that had stretched back centuries has whittled down to one. He is the last of the very, very few who could contain my true form. He is perhaps the last person alive who could hold me for eternity.”

            “So, you just… took him?”

            His eyes rise to mine, “I can not enter my vessel with his approval. I did not steal his body, I asked permission.”

            My toes and fingers tingled, and I turned down to my hands digging into my knees, but even as I pried them away, they shook. The pit in my stomach felt deeper than I could control as emotions warred for purchase, but I pushed them all away. A chilling numbness like a searing cold blanket wrapping tighter and tighter around me.

            He… let himself be possessed?

            He gave permission?

            “He had one condition,” Castiel adds, “I am to protect you and your brother.”

            “Sam died…” Is all I can ask.

            Sighing, he stands and takes a few steps back into he motel room, turning his back seemingly to gather his thoughts.

            I feel like a new born calf as I struggle to my feet with weak knees, but I lean against the door jam to steady myself until he turns around. He turns and the look on Jimmy’s face nearly makes me crumble to the floor.

            Jimmy used to smile and laugh, and his eyes were constant lighthouses of love, shining like a beacon, but the thing inside him, Castiel’s lifeless glower, wrecks me. I’ve crashed at sea, sinking lower and lower into that deep, dark despair.

            “There is a lot you do not know,” he sighs, “A lot you do not need to, but I just couldn’t be here to save your brother by no choice of my own… However, I will not fail from saving you from your descent to hell. I know that saving you from that… It saves you both.”

            I watch him carefully and try to understand, “So you’re just going to rip up my contract with Lilith and walk away?”

            He shots me a dark look, “Stopping you from being taken to hell will be a lot more difficult than that.”

            “How? Why?”

            He looks regretful, “It is written by God that you should go.”

            “God…” I blink. “Wants me to go to hell?” He snorts.  “Am I really such a piece of shit that the holiest being in creation wants me to go to hell?”

            “Dean Winchester,” He furrows his brow and tilts him mouth into a mirthless smirk, “Are you telling me you believe in god?”

            I laugh.

            I laugh so hard it hurts. I laugh even if I shouldn’t, because the joke isn’t funny- at all, but I laugh and laugh until I’m hunched over and gasping desperately as I clutch at my aching stomach. “Did an angel,” I hack, “just ask me if I believe in god?”

            He crosses the room and places a hand on my previously sore shoulder, “Dean,” he says with sharp, penetrating eyes, his mouth a thin white line, and it feels unreal and slightly disapproving.

            I smile wildly, and it feels false and unhinged, like I’ve completely lost my mind.

            Life has this way of being unapologetically brutal to me. Sure, I can push and shove every one of my emotions away until all I have is numbness. I can even try to fight pain and fear with anger. And it can work. I can hide from it for a while. But not forever.

            In fact, I might not even be consciously aware how close I am to a point that holding it back isn’t really an option anymore, until I am standing on the metaphorical razors edge of sanity and realize, with startlingly clarity, that…after long last… this is it…I’m falling apart.

            Pain and fear and anxiety and the steady build of hopelessness collide like four separate world ending disasters slamming into each other. And I feel it deeper than my bones. Adrenaline spikes and being crushed under the weight of knowledge too big for me to handle, seeing spots and falling into hell…

            I have spent so many years trying to forget he existed.

            Maybe Jimmy loved me with all his heart.

            Maybe I chose him knowing I couldn’t keep him, but that was always my style. I reached too damn far. Every. Damn. Time.

            So, he can’t be real. He can’t be.

            He can’t hurt me, if he wasn’t real. The love of my life never died because other than my brother I never loved anything with all my heart…

            So, Jimmy has to be gone.

            I didn’t get it before, but I get it now.

            Years and years later and I finally get it- I _know_ he’s dead.

            He’s fucking dead to me.

            He is dead to me in every way he can be while still standing right in front of me.

            If… if I’m going to keep living… he has to be…

            What better time for Sam to shoulder his way back into your motel room with a huge stack of Styrofoam boxes, but Sam’s not looking up from his balancing act, placing his pile on the rinky-dink dinette table by the window and door.

            “Bobby and Jo asked me to get them breakfast too,” he tells the room, unaware, “I kicked at their door on the way back, they should be here in a few min-“ He turns and catches sight of Castiel, words dying on his tongue. He sucks in a breath, “Oh my god.”

            “Sam,” my voice a strangled mess.

            “Hello Sam,” Castiel tries and doesn’t seem too beat up that Sam doesn’t greet him back, “I hope that you have had adequate time to adjust-“

            Sam’s eyes settle on the angel I can see something in him snap a little. I can see the well of tears threatening to pool in his eyes, “Why are you here?” He asks like a pro despite his pain.

            I feel my protective stance in the bathroom door way melt and I shoulder passed Castiel to cross the room to poke through the boxes of food for a box with my name on it and a stupid plastic fork.

            Sam sidles over to me concern in its full-blown glory, “Dean?”

            A strange kind of hopelessness has settled in. I look up at Castiel, and his brow furrow as a soft, harsh laugh puffs from my mouth as I wipe my face with the back of my hand. “So, how you keepin’ my ass from being dragged to hell?”

            Castiel stands a minuscule bit taller, “Much has already been done, but I think the last thing is killing Lilith.”

            Sam looks whole uncertain as he says, “We’ve been tracking her for weeks… She’s always a step ahead.”

            “I have a little more at my disposal than one ghost.”

            “Do we help?” I ask. “Can we even help?”

            “Don’t look for Lilith.”

            “I wasn’t all that thrilled about looking for her in the first place.”

            “We’re just supposed to trust you,” Sam asks, his voice reeking of incredulousness. “He’s my brother.”

            Castiel cross the room and looks at him with complete sincerity, placing one kind hand on Sam’s shoulder and the other on mine. “And I am one of the few creatures that walk the earth today, that can kill the holder of Dean’s contract, and I will not fail you.” Castiel disappears with a sound of birds taking flight and I turn down to the pie box.

            “Guy likes to make an exit.”


	11. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small chapter update, have mercy.

            Sam was my brother and I knew I was supposed to be gentle and understanding and comforting when he looked so lost and confused but I felt like I was barely holding myself together. I didn’t know what to say to myself- let alone Sam- to make heads or tails of what we were supposed to be doing, supposed to be feeling. Shocked and scared seemed appropriate even if unhelpful. So, I tried for accepting, to just let this settle and let it be normal. We had let so much else become normal by letting it just exist as it was.

            I found a fork, picked up my pie, fell onto my bed and watched Sam watch me. His concern was unwanted but warranted, but it melted slowly into confusion as I take a bite of my pie and lose myself in it. Closing my eyes to enjoy the cinnamon and mushy apples.

            “Dean?” Sam grimaces. I blink up at him and he frowns. “We just going to ignore how upset you were a minute ago?”

            “Please,” I plead softly.

            He rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to stop looking for Lil-“

            The door pushes open and Jo strolls in in search of breakfast. She could sense the awkward, strangled feeling in the room and turned to me cocking an eyebrow, then squints and turns to me fully. “Your bruise,” she points at her own jaw, “It’s.. gone?”

            I snort and roll my newly healed shoulder, “I was touched by and angel.” I could still kinda feel the pressure of his fingers on the meat of my shoulder, as if his fingers were still clinging to me.

            Sam eyed me with angry disappointment as he falls into one of the structurally unsound motel chairs, sighing, “Dean.”

            Jo turns to him, “So, it is angel?”

            Sam turned to me. I shrugged. He sighs again and turns to the food containers to hand one of them to Jo, taking another for himself before he heaves himself off the chair and pushes my foot out of the way to sit on the foot of my bed.

            Jo found a fork and threw one to Sam before taking his chair at the table. She looks at me, “He healed you?”

            I shrug around another bite of pie.

            “He was _just_ here, yeah?” she deduced and popped the lid of her food. “Why didn’t you call out, we were just a room over.”

            “You don’t think I couldn’t handle the dick with wings?” I joke with a false smile and roll my eyes, “Jeez Jo, here I thought I was a grown man whose been huntin’ my whole life.”

            Rolling her eyes, Jo took a bite of her food and talked around the mouthful, “Sorry for bruising your ego.”

            I cracked a real smile as Ellen and Bobby walked in arguing gruffly but loudly about the strategy for tonight’s hunt which drew in Jo’s attention.

            Sam shifted beside me, catching my eye. He pushed around a veggie omelet and looking forlorn.

            “You okay?” I ask softly under the noise of Bobby and Ellen’s voices because he was my little brother, and it was my job to protect him.

            He frowns “I…” then hesitates. “He was more to you- Jimmy was more than a friend to you and I know you loved him- but he was a part of my life too and I loved him and I loved how he made you smile- You don’t smile anymore-“ He takes a deep breath as his voice waivers and he dropped his box of omelet to his lap and turns to me with penetrating eyes, “I know it is harder for you but it hurts to see him knowing we don’t know how to save him-“

            “I don’t want to save him,” I blurt, and I knew somewhere deep inside that it wasn’t true, even if I was angry right now. Hurt blossoms in Sam’s eyes. “He had to give that basterd permission to possess him, he knew what he was doing.”

            Sam turned away.

            I grab his shoulder, “We’re going to be okay Sam. We always are.”

            “Do you think he can kill Lilith?” he asks absently.

            “Even if he doesn’t…” I shrug and hold tighter to him, “I love you Sam.”

            He turns his eyes up to me and I could see all his emotions waring inside him before he settles on, “I love you too.” He had more to say and we both knew it, but we turn to Bobby and Ellen’s argument, letting it drop.


	12. Chapter 11

            Ruby showed up sometime in the afternoon, having cased the farmhouse at the edge of town and deemed the four people living there both werewolves and blood hungry. Sam had her draw up blue prints of the area and she lingered as we suited up just before sunset.

            “You give that thingy in the trunk a look at?” She asks as she carves sigils into the hilt of a knife with another knife, draping herself over a chair, propping her feet up on the other chair.

            “Nope,” I admit freely, popping the 'p" sound at the end of the word. “Shouldn’t you be buggin’ Sam or something?” I huff as I lace up my boots.

“Nope,” she smirks as she pops the end of the word too, and adds, “It’s so much easier to bug you, after all.” I cut my eyes at her and she smiles brightly and crinkles her nose playfully, “I know,” she coos, “Not so fun to be on the receiving end of teasing, huh?”

            “I hate you,” I growl half-heartedly, but she just shrugs it off and goes back to carving into the knife.

            Sam comes back in the room from the Impala, “Ellen just manhandled Jo and Bobby into her car, we should be heading out after her pretty soon.” He grabs his pistol off his bed where he left it after cleaning, checking for the hundredth time he had loaded his sliver bullets and had a spare clip in his pocket.

            “Ready when you are,” I say getting to my feet and pulling on my jacket. Sam leads the way, Ruby trailing after me, “You comin’ too?” I ask her.

            She shrugs “I can, if you want, Dean-ah-ling.”

            Sam laughs as I frown in horror at the nick-name, “Beat it, She-witch.”

            “I’ll miss you too,” she splits off from us as we reach the Impala.

            “Why are you so mean to her?” Sam rolls his eyes as we climb into the Impala.

            I start the car and turn to him, “Really, you have to ask Sam?”

            “She’s helping us,” he slams the car door distractedly dramatic.

            “Helping,” I huff and pull out of the parking space and head for the werewolf HQ. “Half the time she just sits around and annoys one of us.”

            “Last I saw she was making another demon knife, Dean.”

            “She just wants in Jo’s pants-”

            Sam bursts out a single laugh and mumbles under his breath. “Do you think she really did it for Jo?”

            I feel my face scrunch, “Who the hell else would it be for?” I feel him turn toward me and look incredulous. “…What?” I ask uncertainly.

            He narrows his eyes and scoffs, “Us.”

            “Us?”

            “Yes, Dean, us. You think she does anything like that for just _anyone_? Why would she come around all the time even if we have her bones? She could just grab them any time she wanted but she doesn’t. And don’t try to say it’s because she wants me, because she doesn’t. That isn’t what it is- She does everything you say, anything you tell her to do even if you should ask. You are the walking epitome of threat when to comes to her. But, she watches you when you talk, listens when you yell, challenges you when you need it, and she always helps-“

            “Jesus, Sam,” I interrupt him. “Why exactly am I getting the third degree here? I thought she was your girlfriend?

            “My- _My_ girlfriend?” he sputters, “You really are that dense, aren’t you? You think she loves me?  Well, maybe she does- butt, you think I love her? Yes! Because she’s like a _sister_ to me. You and her take care of me! Without you two I’d be in the looney bin drooling all over myself. But Dean! But she knows she’s a ghost and knows it’s our job to kill things like her, yet she _willingly_ comes to hang out- to help- to give us monster mojo stuff that she thinks cold be something we would want to know about.”

            “I-“ my mouth clicks shut as I try to picture that being true… Ruby… likes us, not just Sam? I can’t really see it. “What?!” I grimace and glance at him. “Sam, are you high?”

            “Oh my fu- You know what, drop it- Never mind.” He sinks low in his seat and the rest of the car ride is awkwardly quiet as I try to picture in what universe Ruby could like me, I’m not even nice to her- I suggest killing her like… daily, at least.

            I park the car a good few miles away as not to draw attention, meaning we have a hike ahead of us through the woods. I ask, “How could she even care about things, she’s dead?”

            “We love all kinds of people who are dead,” he shrugs.

            My mouth dries like the Sahara, and even as I see Sam shrink back at the realization of what he had just uttered, blatant hurt blooms in my chest as images of Mom, Dad, Jimmy and everyone else we ever lost, flash in my mind. I push angrily out of the car and don’t bother to wait for Sam as I stomp off into the thick woodland.

            But I guess in a way he’s right. Dead people could still love…

            I still loved Sam even if he can be an absolute moron sometimes…

            …I still love Jimmy… for whatever that is worth.

            When Sam catches up, I spare him a glance that he takes for the forgiveness that it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for another short chapter but I like this one for what it is. The next one is longer and I REALLY like that one, so it's something to look forward to. 
> 
> If you like the fic so far leave a kudos or a comment! Would love to hear what you think. :)


	13. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, can i just take a second to thank everyone who has kudosed, commented, bookmarked this story so far. I mean, really, thank you. I hope you would enjoy another chapter, because here it is. :)

            We are all in place, spread out evenly around the line of trees that encircle the farmhouse hideout when the full moon peeks over the horizon, and the first hungry howl echoes across the night sky. 

            Sam had been on Bobby’s side of the argument that splitting up was not the greatest idea but me and Jo had backed Ellen, but I was seeing the flaw in the plan now. A terrible scream morphs into a monstrous growling bark as the people inside the farm house transform. It’s unsettling to be left all alone to face that music. It seems like the kind of thing meant to be shared and feared together with the ones you love, but I hold my position least we let the werewolves slip through our fingers. Any minute now, we are going to have to take these bastards out.

            Years of hunting experience calm me as I let my mind clear and settle, my breaths even out and I feel my eyes laser focus on the house. I can almost feel my father standing next to me whispering stark orders. _Focus. Focus! Be ready._

Tingling awareness takes hold me easily.

I am ready.

            Let’s do this.

            Four large figures break from the house, smashing and tearing through the walls and windows as they escape. They’re about a hundred feet away, more toward the front of the house where Jo is stationed, but I can see them huffing and sniffling in the air as they detect our scents in the wind.

            They turn decisively toward Jo.

            I don’t even think before I launch myself into the clearing and race toward the wolves. The instinctual urge to run for my life tickling my brain before my gun lifts and I take aim: three of my four shots perfectly hitting their mark: perfectly between their eyes. The fourth missing devastatingly as it rips through its ear.

            The creature is already moving toward me, I don’t have another change to let off another round as the thing smashes into me. My gun slips from my hand. I go flying at the force of the impact, the werewolf snapping a few ribs as it lands on top of me, his claws imbedded firmly in my chest.

            I can’t even call out. There isn’t enough time nor is there any air in my lungs- hell, I’d be surprised if they weren’t punctured. I reach for my machete or knife sheathed at my hip and try to force in a breath, but the wolf is too heavy, my lungs too damaged, my body too hurt.

            My eyes catch the sparkle of light over the creature’s shoulder, the tingle of distant, weak stars spiraling out from a rising full moon against the canopy of a black, endless night’s sky.

            I feel it like the breath I can’t take, surprisingly clear and crisp.

            Sam’s smile is lost in the shape of the sky. Mom’s tinder laugh spilled across it. Dad’s rough hands buried in the darkness of it. Jimmy’s breath tickling the edges of its vision. Bobby’s and Ellen’s arguing and Jo’s freckles dancing and spiraling in those little spots of light.

            My fingers close on the hilt of a blade- the wolf bares his teeth as he rises up on his hind legs to smash back down on my chest with his claws-

            If I had more than half an instant before the beast tore into me, I would have huffed a laugh at the irony of dying before my deal was due.

            “Dean!” someone yells but it is too late- The wolf’s claws dig into my skin, and I howl both at the pain on my skin and the pain in my head as an explosion of ringing sounds in my ears.

            Darkness screams over and around me as pain takes every one of my senses, and I’m not sure if I died or if I just blacked out.

 

.:.

 

            He’s cradled against my side, his smile curved into my skin. Like it should be. He was always meant to be a part of me. I am nothing without him. He is all that is good and warm and lovely inside of me.

            I wonder how I could ever be so lucky to have found someone who kisses like heaven and loves like God.

            “Jimmy,” I murmur into his hair and I wrap him in my arms.

            The sun pours in the open window and his skin positively glows under it, the way things do only in dreams or in memories. In those docile moments of peace when you get the time to day dream.

            He rubs his face affectionately into my shoulder as he stretches, his toes and ankles cracking pleasantly. His eyelashes flutter against his cheek and my heart summersaults in my chest. Ocean blue eyes wash over me and the silk of his voice rubs me dry. “Good morning, Dean.”  So beautiful.

            I roll over him and cage him in my arms to just stare at him. To take in the freckle just above his dark, right eyebrow, the crow’s feet weak in the corner of his glorious eyes as he blinks softly up at me, the softness of his lips as he smiles lightly and nips at my mouth even as I pull out of range.

            “Dean,” he purrs as he curls up to latch his soft mouth to my neck, licking and sucking little marks into it.

            My fingers of one hand trail up and down his sides and his legs open, letting me side between them. His touch slowly undoes me, one hand traces a curling line up into my hair, the other gripping hard at my hip, purring, “Dean, I love you I love you I love you, my beautiful Dean…”

            I find his mouth and lick into it, the sweet taste of him burning through me like wild fireworks.

            I’m swimming in him.

            My mouth tasting him, nose buried in his scent, my ears filled with his voice, my arms holding him like a dream, and I can’t stop watching him- his blue eyes are all I see.

            He pushes me on my back and rolls on top of me, his comforting arms curling around me as he nips and licks at my lips, his hips rolling contently against mine.

            I hold so tight to his hips, because it just feels like too much and not enough. A war between all my senses that all want more and less, and more and less.

            “James,” my voice suddenly deplores as it breaks, but he kisses kindly at my cheeks and whispers praise in my ears.

            “Dean, yes, Dean. You’re so beautiful. I love you I love you I love you I love you-“ His voice like buckshot to the chest, blossoms and flowers painful sorrow and longing deep beneath my bones.

            My love for him…

            It stretches on like the movement of the stars across the sky.

            He has every inch of me.

            Every last corner of my heart I had left to give, he has taken.

            I feel him inside of me like a breathing thing.

            He’s all the good I’ve ever strived to be.

            Blue, blue, blue eyes watch me raptly.

            I don’t ever want to let go.

            “Castiel,” the name spills from mouth with a sob as Jimmy places small, chaste kisses across the bridge of my nose.

            “Yes, Dean, Dean, Dean, Dean,” He chants, and our hips slide perfectly together. “I love you I love you Love you loveyouloveyou” His fingers curled perfectly in my hair, incoherently tight on my hip. And I feel the fullness in the room, that staggeringly frightening feeling of being insignificant as dark smudges of wings flare across the walls- over me- burn across my skin- my soul. It fills me, and it boils me away, but Jimmy’s mouth sooths away the fear. His voice curls around the feeling and makes it not matter.

            He is there.

            He’s _always_ there.

            He hides behind the mask of an uncaring angel, but he cares- cares and cares and cares.

            “Cas!” I moan, his teeth dig perfectly in my collar bone, and my hips roll wholeheartedly into his.

            Jimmy’s right here. Right here. And Castiel is swimming in him too. He’s lost under Jimmy’s skin- bursting through the world as his wings arch like shadows around me.

            He’s right here- holding me and kissing me. Scaring and soothing me. Mine and only mine.

            Jimmy- Castiel- Jimmy- Castiel- Jimmy Castiel JimmyCastielJimCasJim- “Cas,” I pant.

            “Yes Dean,” he sighs in my ear, “I’m right here with you, I’m with you, DEAN.”

            He’s all I ever wanted. All I cannot have.

            Searing, white hot pain rips a sob from my mouth and I push away despite the instinct to crash myself into him. I- I can’t!

            I roll out of our bed and nearly trip as my feet tangle in the sheets.

            His voice is soft and low as sin as he asks, “ _Where_ do you think you are going?”

            I can’t look at him as pull on a pair of sweats from the floor over my boxers, not caring who they belong to, because I felt so naked and uncomfortably venerable and frightened beyond all reason.

            He makes a small noise and rolls toward me and grabs my hand before I can reel away and catches my eyes before I clamp them shut. “Dean,” he chides with a caring tone, as soft and velvet as ever. He kisses softly at my knuckles with red, swollen lips and watches me faithfully.

            “Cas,” I whisper, because his name sends fear rolling up my spine. because he isn’t really mine, he’s an angel, something so great and powerful I shouldn’t touch let alone kiss him, even if is wrapped in the best man I have ever known.

            His eyes turn down to my fingers curling around his. “If Sam has the strength to let you go, do you think _I_ would let you go to hell?” He asks softly. “Do you think that I have walked for so long on this side and still not know the doors to places I’m not supposed to know? Do you think I have not been to hell? Do you think I would not rescue you if you were dragged there?”

            “You took Jimmy,” my voice barely a squeak.

            He shakes his head cautiously, something like hurt visible as looks up at me and rubs my hand against the scruff on his cheeks. “After so long of walking together in heaven, I no longer know where he ends, and I begin.” he admits, and frowns slightly with tears straining in his blue, blue eyes as my heart clenches. “You deserve to be saved... So… let me save you… fucking let us.”

            Us.

            Forever and always Us.

            An unnameable affection blows over my fear and I bow down to kiss the soft skin at his crown, whispering into his hair as he wraps his arms around my waist. “When did I ever make your life easy?” Jimmy’s name at the tip of my tongue, but I’m not sure if that is true anymore.

            He sighs loudly, but there is a smile in his voice as he says, “Never.”


	14. Chapter 13

            Castiel is kneeling over me when my eyes blink open and his name tumbles from my lips as a rasping, hoarse whisper, “Cas,” and I break into a fit of coughs.

            Sam throws himself over my prone form like a weeping bride or something, “Dean!” he yells as he wraps me in his arms. “Oh my god! I thought you were- Jesus- you were- holy shit!“

            Instinctively, my arms wrap around Sam as best I can as he crushes me in a hug.

            “You stupid Idjit!” Bobby kicks my leg with a steel toe.

            “Ow!” I growl harshly. I push Sam away and turn to the old man as I cradle my knee. “What the hell Bobby!”

            He looks fairly rumpled and stressed out, as do Ellen and Jo who are standing a few feet away, blinking at me with huge eyes.

            “What was that _exactly_ , Boy? You nearly got yourself killed!” he yells down at me with fists on his hips.

            Now is usually when some kind of righteous anger takes me over and I either fly off the handle, or I try to brush them off with a laugh as if nothing could ever hurt me. But, that werewolf _had_ hurt me.

            My hand draws up to my chest and my palm touches bare skin where there should be t-shirt or over shirt or jacket. I look down to find my shirt completely destroyed, shredded, ripped and covered in blood- still wet blood- _my_ still wet blood.

            My eyes turn up to Castiel who is now standing and few feet away after being pushed aside by Sam. There is this incredible weight behind his eyes and a firmness to his jaw that aches with a distant familiarity.

            “We had a plan!” Bobby yells, demanding my attention, “If they went for one of us, we stuck to the tree line as we went to help! What were you thinking just going out in the open like that?”

            I push up to my feet, ignoring Bobby’s rant and Sam’s silent pleas to stay down, to take in my surroundings.

            I’m about twenty feet away from where I remember being. So, that thing threw me pretty far. The wolf’s dead body is crumbled like five feet to my right as if he had been dragged sideways and dropped, the other three are dead where I remember them had falling. “We should burn them,” I say blankly, and turn in a circle on my heel, eyeing the shin height, dead grass for my discarded pistol.

            Sam huffs his disbelief at my nonchalance, and Bobby’s mouth snaps shut as he turns a suspicious eye at Castiel, for whatever reason. Jo and Ellen share a look before they turn to the dead bodies, as if just remembering they were there.

            “Right,” Ellen sighs, “Jo go check the house for lighter fluid or alcohol, take Sam with you just in case.” Jo looks ready to argue for a moment, but her mother shoots her a glare that she takes to heart.

            “Fiiiiine,” she growls and stocks to the farmhouse formally known as Werewolf HQ, Sam following just a second later as Ellen shoots him a glare too, but he glances at me over his shoulder as he goes, face full of concern.

            Bobby and Ellen stock off a moment later to find a decent place to start a fire big enough to burn four huge wolves, decidedly _not_ asking me to do anything but sit on my ass, “I ain’t entirely sure you weren’t dead a minute ago,” she mumbles under her breath as they walk, leaving Cas and me all on our lonesome.

            “You see my gun?” I ask as I kick around in the grass. Castiel points off a little ways and I follow his finger right to my gun, snuggled close to the bark at the foot of a tree. “Cool,” I say absently, cocking it to dislodge the round and click the safety before tucking it into the back of my jeans. I heave a sigh and lean against that same tree.

            My shirt is absolutely ruined in the front and my jacket is covered in so much blood it’s probably ruined too. “You don’t happen to have dry cleaning services do you,” I joke, turning a smirk on Castiel.

            He blinks slowly before rolling his eyes a second later, refusing to smile as he turns away.

            “Not even a chuckle?” I smile brightly.

            He turns a weak glare at me before he strides over, I’m half expecting him to slug me or something, but he just touches softly at my shoulder with just the tips of his fingers and I feel a shift in my shirt and jacket as they are completely fixed. “Huh,” I huff, turning up to him, “I didn’t think you could really clean my clothes.”

            He quirks half a smile- less than half a smile- just a tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth, that could so easily be missed. So small I can’t help thinking I might just be imagining it altogether, but dregs of a half-remembered dream slink through my mind.

            “Y-you,” I stammer and have to turn my eyes away, my face burning hot as I swallow hard, unable to verbalize the sentence and settle on. “…I almost died?”

            Castiel’s fingers curl tighter into my newly restored jacket, and he nods curtly just once.

            “You saved… me?”

            His eyes bore into me, his back ramrod straight. “Samuel shot the werewolf just as I arrived- If I had been just one second later…” his words petered out, but the rest of the sentence was clear.

            I met his eye firmly, “How close was I actually?”

            “As I said, a second, maybe two,” he answered mechanically, something burning and swelling inside of him.

            I nod softly, but smirk wryly as I ask, “You hear any Demon Dogs?”

            “Dean,” he frowns seriously, and maybe I can hear concern in his voice, but I can’t tell if I like it or not. If Jimmy is really there, how does this not make it worse? If he is gone forever, how am I supposed to forgive him?

            “Tell me Jimmy’s gone,” I ask softly, and I see the expectation of it hit him, as if he had saw it coming but was unprepared for it.

            “I-“ he cuts himself off to burn his vision into the very center of the Earth.

            I feel sorrow like ice in my chest, but shut my mouth as I watch the hard, rigid lines of his face. I wonder how it is I could miss Jimmy so much, that I could see the softness of his gaze lingering in the coldness of Castiel’s, when I couldn’t see it before. I wonder if I’m just losing it, or if I have already lost it and am dipping into the peak insanity I’ve feared for so long would catch up to me.

            “You’ve...” Castiel says softly, “been having dreams.”

            “I’m not following, Cas,” I admit.

            He lifts his eyes to mine, his careful, steady gaze felt like razors against my skin, and he made no attempt to even blink as he confessed, “I have been dream-walking with you.”

            “That’s…” I feel the blood drain from my face. _My heart rip against my ribs and all I could hear, could feel, could taste was Castiel's voice, rough and warm and liquid as he moans out Iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou- His arms wrapped around me. Hands in my hair. His eyes glinting in a full moon’s glare._ Half remembered dreams that scream up from deep inside to be felt. “… a huge invasion of privacy,” I finish hollowly.

            He swallows hard, closes his eyes softly, regretfully. “This last time-“ _his hips dragging perfectly against mine._ “-I did what I must to keep you from crossing to the other side-.” _JimmyCastielJimCasJim- “Cas,”_ “-you were so close to being gone-“ _I love you love…_ “-Dean, I had to do it.”

            “Cas,” I whisper as my mind spins, …It’s too much. “Shut up.” I step firmly out of his reach without another word, turn towards the farm house and start after Bobby and Ellen, hearing Castiel follow me deathly quiet… too damn close… not close enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the new chapter, I was singing 'draaama' as I posted it :P I know, I'm weird, let's not dwell on it fellow travelers. 
> 
> Next chapter is all written, just got to edit it before posting. Just a few more chapters after that to go. An ending is in sight people!
> 
> Kudos and/or comments are appreciated. :)


	15. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update. Hope you enjoy.

             Burnt hair is never a great smell, but somehow it smells strangely like home, which is… well, gross, but also kinda funny. It’s a part of the job, like ninety-five percent of the job, actually.

            We have all congregated around the four burning corpses behind a creaky old barn. _Booby_ and _Ear-llen_ are still pissed at me for almost dying. “Havin’ an angel on your shoulder ain’t no excuse to be an absolute IDIOT,” Ellen had chastised when I finally found them, and Bobby had agreed with her. They were now on the opposite side of the bonfire than me, squabbling like an old married couple.

            Jo sat cross legged a few feet to my right, jabbing at the bodies with sizable poking stick she had ripped off a nearby tree, watching the flames lick playfully at it. She smiles faintly, and frankly, I am a tad concerned at her lightheartedness at playing with dead bodies.

            Sam, who was sat right next to me on a fallen log leaned against the barn, seems to find words to express my sentiment at Jo, “Having fun there, Joanna Beth?”

            She huffs and raises an eyebrow, only passing him a glance as she snorts, “Don’t ‘Joanna Beth’  me, Samuel Eric.” Then, she grunts, “Fire fun, I bored.”

            Laughing with Sam, I snort, “Need help, you do.”

            “Whatever _Yoda_ ,” she smirks, “Like you’re one to talk when you still haven’t dealt with Brighteyes over there.” Indicting Castiel who is a quite few feet away from the fire, directly across from Jo, idly inspecting a husk of mostly rust that used to be a camper shell. His brows were drawn together with quiet anger for whatever reason, but it is preferable to him standing over my shoulder and suffocating me with his closeness until he finally wondered off.

            I turn back to her, “Should I poke him with a stick?” I smile.

            He wiggles her eyebrows suggestively, “You said it, not me.”

            “Jo,” Sam gasps with a laugh.

            She just smirks and goes back to her body desecration. Sam pulls out his phone and tries to get a signal. I turn back toward Castiel.

            He is far outside the light of the warm glow from the flames, but a cool, blue light sprinkles down from the moon as he tilts his head back to watch the sparkling stars overhead. Slowly, I tilt my head back too, and find them dimmer than they should be.

            Glancing back at Castiel, his eyes are closed so gently my heart beats loud but steady inside of me. His hand raises to grab at the lapel of his coat over his heart, and it’s like he’s trying to feel my pounding pulse in his chest. As if he could… I wish he could.

            I wish Jimmy could feel the beating of my heart as if it were his own, and if Castiel could make it happen…

            My eyes tilt to the long column of his exposed throat, and swallow down the memory of my lips on it, of the texture of it under my tongue, of the taste and smell, of the warmth against my fingers as I slot his mouth against mine. Of the ever-present stubble on it scratching against the drag of my mouth… against my chest…against the inside of my thigh.

            He drops his chin slowly and our eyes meet.

            I feel him inside me, fluttering against my heart, buried in my memories, howling to be felt.

            “Dean…” I am too far away to hear his whisper, but I read it on his lips, taste it like a prayer. God, it rings inside my eardrums like tinkling bells, and it takes all my energy not to jump to my feet and close that dark distance between us.

 _“Do you think there is anywhere you could go, that I would not follow?”_ I hear in my head, a memory I can’t place but rings with Castiel’s voice, is cradled in the circle of his arms around me. It’s followed by, _“But you love me? You want to bury it?... Good luck with that.”_

            The response, _“Watch me.”_ burns across my tongue, but I don’t want to bury it, to forget him… I’m so tired of not having him. I don’t care if he is not exactly as I remember him. I don’t care if Jimmy is so tangled with the angel that I don’t know how to separate them. That when I look at Castiel, I feel all the love I had for Jimmy surface like and explosion.

            I know they are not the same. Jimmy’s soft care is lost in all the hard edges of Castiel, but I see something so, so familiar in the intensity of his eyes.

            A loud, dull thud sounds just behind Jo and I turn toward her with a start, my hand instinctively reaching for my gun.

            Ruby, who looks like she was just thrown from a tornado with her hair a mess and her clothes half torn and ripped off her, is laying on her stomach in the dirt gasping for breath.

            Sam bounces to his feet and rushes to her, “Breathe, breathe.” he instructs as he helps her sit up against his chest.

            “Oh my god,” she groans, clenching her eyes closed with the back of her hand to her mouth, in obvious pain. “I-I-I-“ she wheezes then shudders, her eyes still closed. “I found Lilith.”

 

.:.

 

            Castiel is beside Ruby in a blink, pulling her from Sam by the arm, and wrenching her to her feet and holding her there even as her knees wobble. He stares her right in the face, features like steel. “Where,” he spits.

            Her eyes are huge and afraid as she beseeches to me and Sam, begging us to help.

            I get to my feet, “Cas, cool it a little, would you-“

            Castiel turns to me, eyes ablaze. “You. Will. Not. Follow.” And disappears with Ruby.

            “Uh?” Jo gaps.

            “Boys?” Bobby asks tightly.

            I turn to Sam to find him already looking at me, the same train of thought arching across the distance.

            “No!” Ellen orders, but it is too late.

            Sam and I are racing through the clearing and between trees as we cut through, blasting our way like two bullets to the Impala parked beyond.

            We are almost through the thick of it when the sound of a third pair of feet catch up to us. Sam is just in front of me, so I risk a glance to find Jo racing to catch our heels with the same determination etched on her face I can feel on mine.

            The three of us pounce out of the trees and slap our feet on the pavement. Sam reaches the Impala first, panting, and he slams into the trunk. I throw him the keys and he jams it in, tearing through the contents inside as I wrench the car door open to find the pouch of Ruby’s bones in the glove compartment as I gasp for air in my burning lungs.

            I reach the back of the Impala as Jo slams down the map on top of the trunk with more force than I would normally like but couldn’t care less about right now. Her face I bright red from exertion as she sets the ritual bowls in each of the paper’s corners and haphazardly sprinkles ingredients all over the place as she dusts them into the correct bowls. I drop in one of Ruby’s finger bones into the right bowl just in time, and Sam slices across his palm with a millisecond to spare as Jo recites the incantation over the whole thing at lightning speed.

            The map in the center of the action ignites. Flames consuming the map in a blink and Sam has to snatch the bit of paper that is remaining from the air as a breeze picks it up.

            “Dean!” He hisses as he slaps the keys into my hand, “This is two hours away!”

            “Yeah fucking right!” I laugh as I slide into my seat.  “Give me that address, lets see if we can break the fucking sound barrier.” But I turn in my seat when Jo closes the door in the back. “Get out.” I growl.

            “Fuck you! Like I am letting you two idiots go alone after _I_ performed the tracking spell,” she wipes at her sweaty forehead, “because we all know I can do it the fastest!”

            “The crazy train only has seats for two people in this suicide mission, Jo!”

            “Fuck you!” she repeats again belligerently, “Now hit the fucking gas! Before I do it myself!”

            “We need the help, Dean.” Sam tries to reason.

            “NO!”

            “Let us help you!” Jo spits, my patience snapping. “Let me!” Damn her. Damn her to the moon and back. Damn her to hell!!

            I slam the car into drive and stomp on the gas pedal.


	16. Chapter 15

            Terror has a new name, it’s Dean Winchester. It’s driving a long black car. It’s racing and drifting through red lights and stop signs, around corners and through flowered separation medians. It’s alive, hurdling toward a destination, closer to death than it had ever been. And I had very nearly died just a few hours ago, only to be pulled back to the land of the living by and angel wearing the skin of my once-thought-dead boyfriend.

            Jesus Christ, my life is weird.

            Jo is in the back seat, barely buckled into her seatbelt, swearing at every sharp turn and gritting her teeth at every ran light.

            Sam is calling out directions as he alternates glancing down at the map on his phone and the street speeding passed. His voice feels like an anchor to reality as my mind screams out for me to turn around and head back to Ellen and Bobby, to relative safety and comfort. My baby brother’s voice holds me to my resolve, to my hard-gathered truth that I can’t run away.

            Whatever fate we are racing to, whatever hell we smash into, it is something _I_ have to face.

            It is not Ruby’s job to save me. Or Castiel’s. Or even Sam’s or Jo’s, even if they refuse to let me face it alone.

            Almost a year ago, I made the deal. I filled the box, found the cross road, forced the demon. I _asked_ , and I _begged_ for a deal. I needed and wanted my brother alive, couldn’t face the world without him.

            So, I _know_. I know with every fiber of my being that this is no one’s fight but my own, and I won’t let them die for me. I refuse.

            Plain and simple, ain’t no one dying for me.

            I set my own trap, cast my own fate, beg my own death, but never theirs.

            So, I am terror. I am its face and its name, and I am its resolve. Nothing, nothing at all, can stop me from protecting them, from dying what needs to be dead to protect them, even if it is myself.

            We screech to a halt at the first sign of trouble: a man laying in the middle of the road.

            I twist of the engine and push out of the impala, leaving her nearly smoking from exhaustion in the street where she sits.

            Without Sam’s voice to instill any kind of calmness, I feel the world sharpen as I approach the body sprawled across the asphalt. I feel like I can see passed all the shadows the tress and clean houses drop to the floor as they block out the silver moon light. I can see through the darkness of the night like I have learned and trained to do all my life. I can taste the sulfur and the tense coil of apprehension and the trilling adrenaline bursting through my veins. I can hear the stillness of the world as it holds its breath, because something is very wrong and even the crickets are too scared to call out their presence.

            My knife is in my fingers as I reach down to turn the still warm man over. His eyes are burned from his skull and he ain’t breathing.

            “Jesus Christ,” Jo hisses softly over my shoulder.

            I rise and sniff my fingers, “Sulfur.”

            “Think he was possessed?” Sam asks quietly, knelling down to check his pulse.

            “Smell’s strong enough, most likely.”

            “He’s still warm,” Sam murmurs standing and catching my eye, “This _just_ happened.”

            I spot another prone form down the street from where I’m standing, just behind a parked car. Silently taking point, I am careful on my approach and find the figure to be a woman, dead and without her eyes, and just like the man, she’s still warm.

            Down the street around the corner to what looks like a cul-de-sac, I spot a group of bodies fallen in and around one of the front yards at the end. “Sam, how close are we to that address?”

            He looks grim and stiff as he answers, “I think that’s it.”

            Jo snorts, “You fuckin’ think?” Then she’s cocking the shot gun in her hands that I didn’t know she had. It’s not lethal, but it’s something.

            The closer we get, the more blood there is. We aren’t even half down the block before we are washed in the stench of it, thicker and richer even than the sulfur. I raise my knife across my chest and hold just that bit tighter. Sam steps just that bit further, and we are striding carefully side by side, a wall of muscle between the gruesome horror in front of us and the blonde girl with a shot gun covering our backs.

            Every light on the street is out, every window dark. It’s eerily calm. The only noise, the sound of your boots on the cement, the cadence of our breathing.

            Sam ducks down to check on the first body we encounter, and I move to the next as Jo stands as cover.

            While still warm, this sulfur ridden dead guy still has his eyes, but there is a scorched knife wound in this chest not unlike when I we use our knives on demons, even if the wound looks big enough to be more like a sword of some kind, as there is and wide entrance and exit wound through the thickest part of his abdomen.

            Standing, I realize almost all the bodies lain before us have been sliced open one way or another, which explains the blood strewn across the grass like a nightmare fueled blanket. A few of the bodies are even missing heads.

            My eye catches on the twitching form of someone buckled against the front door of the house. Her arms curled around her middle as her dark hair hides the face of her hanging head. Her legs barely propping her up as she presses against the door with her back. I recognize her blood soaked, leather jacket.

            I disregard the rest of the obviously dead to climb the stairs to kneel down in front of Ruby.

            Lifts her head weakly, grimacing in pain as a trail of black blood leaks from her mouth. “Hey Deanie Bean,” her usually slick voice crackles, her eyes clamped shut, “I thought you were told to take the rest of the night off.”

            “What happened here?” I reach out a hand to wipe off the ectoplasm from her chin, but my hand sails right through. “Jesus.” I hiss at the ice cold feeling it leaves on my fingers.

            “Sorry,” she growls, “Using all my energy to keel this damn door closed.”

            Sam kneels down next to me, “Is Lilith still in there?”

            She nods softly, a howling scream echoing beyond the door as if on que.

            “Did Castiel…?” I twitch over my shoulder to the yard.

            “Shoulda been there,” she smirks, “So badass.” She tries to laugh but another drop of blood escapes her lips and she sucks in a pained breath.

            “Are you going to be okay?” Jo’s tiny voice asked over my shoulder, and Ruby’s eyes shot up, real fear showing in there.

            “I’m going in,” I tell her as I stand and reach for the nob, but it doesn’t budge as I try to turn the handle. “Let me in.”

            “You brought Jo?” she hisses at me. “How could you bring Jo? She doesn’t even have anything lethal on her? I didn’t finish her knife.”

            “Let me in,” I repeat as Jo says, “I’m more than capable at kicking ass, Ruby,” with all the confidence and heat she has.

            She frowns at me. “No can do. Castiel was very clear on the whole ‘not letting anyone in or out’ thing.”

            “Jo can stay out here with you,” I compromise and hear Jo growl, “I can handle myself you, condescending assholes.” Jo is pissed at being left out of the action, but Ruby shifts her eyes over to her and _really_ considers it, and I turn to see Jo’s eyes soften under the scrutiny of Ruby’s gaze. Jo blows out a sigh, and looks back to me, “Fine, okay.”

            I turn back to Ruby and she looks reluctant, but less so. I try to turn the handle again and it gives only a centimeter, “Let me in.”

            She hisses through her teeth as a wicked scream filters through the walls of the house, as if someone had just punched her in the stomach and more blood choked from her mouth. “Dear god,” she gasps with a grunt, but turns up to me and Sam, who has crowded up behind me with his knife ready and glinting. “Just…” she looks between us, “Don’t die.”

            “Wouldn’t dream of it, Sweet cheeks,” I smirk as the door handle gives under my palm and I wrench the door open, stepping in with Sam just before it slams shut behind us with a muffled, “ _Now_ he turns on the charm? What a bastard,” that sounds like Ruby’s voice and a quiet laugh that sounds like Jo’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me start by apologizing from the tardiness of this chapter, because yeeash. But also please forgive me for what i must tell you, but i have no idea when i am finishing the next chapter, which fyi is the last one before the epilogue, but rest assured that it will get done though. The main hold up is while i mostly have finished the epilogue it works well the two ways the climax can go and i can't make up my mind.... I know i'm a terrible human, please forgive me while i existential crisis.


	17. Chapter 16

            The living room is empty, but for the blood painting the place red.

            In some ways it is exactly like every other job. The horror of it is not unfamiliar. Boys raised to be men too early knew of little else but this stench of blood, of the remnants of fear, or death touched down like an atomic bomb. The scene was familiar in a way that few things ever could be to me and Sam.

            This place, like so many other places like it was another kind of home. Different than the Impala but similar too. Different from the uncountable motel rooms, but similar too.

            So, as we stalked into the room, Sam took his place beside me and we marched into the pandemonium in the next room.

            Castiel was facing off with ten demons, a wicked sword blocking and dealing out shots like he was made for it- maybe he was- and when he couldn’t land shots with his sword he was punching or kicking them across the room toward someone who could only be Lilith.

            White ghoulish eyes cutting to me as a fucking disgusting smile dissected her twisted features, as if she were more than the hot blond she was wearing, as if her real face was morphing every few seconds through the skin like a bad projection.

            I had just enough time to notice that Lilith appeared to be trapped in a very intricate, but unknown containment circle before her slick voice crooned out, “Nice of you boys to join us.” She smiled wickedly and the demons who had been knocked back from the angel turned their attention to us. We threw ourselves on them in a well-practiced way, catching them as off guard as we could ever hope.

            I’m not going to lie, this wasn’t our hero moment. As my brother, some angel in my ex-boyfriend’s meat suit and I slowly picked off demons with weapons that lit them up like Christmas, we didn’t fight honorably. We were outnumbered, and Lilith hadn’t surrounded herself with just your average walk of life demons. They fought just as hard, just as dirty as we did. There were a few nut shots and some vague hair pulling, eye gouging and biting thrown in for good measure.

            I’m sure there should have been some attempts at the demons using the force to slam them into wall and pin them, but there were sigils, painted in god only knew what because they glowed faintly, that seemed to prevent them from doing the whole-throwing-us-around-like-ragdolls bit monsters seemed to enjoy so much.

            By the time the last demon was slumping off Castiel’s sword, the three of us were drenched in blood, nursing wounds and panting for breath as we all turned to the pale and terrified looking Lilith.

            “This wasn’t how it was supposed to go,” her voice wavered before she turned to the angel, “THIS WASN’T HOW IT WAS SUPPOSED TO GO!!”

            The reality of the situation hits me then.

            Two humans and an angel walk into a demon’s den as a kid and ghost keep watch. It’s almost a funny, almost a joke. I almost point it out, but can’t find the words.

            Turning my eyes to the room, I take in the carpet of bodies lain at our feet. Terrified and bloody faces looking up at me, at us. My eyes flick up to Sam who looks just as stunned and delirious as me. There’re tears in his eyes as he stares down the length of his body to his fingers curled around his knife before he’s turning up to meet my eye.

            I don’t think either of us thought we would be here for this moment. Would live to be able to turn toward Castiel as he took a careful step toward the furious form of Lilith who flickers in and out of her cage of skin and bone.

            Castiel starts muttering out a spell in an unfamiliar language that not only sends Lilith to her knees but makes her mouth snap closed in abject horror.

            For the first time in a very long time, I can feel the weight of the death in the air. Feel it wrap around me in a way that a doesn’t threaten to take me, but I a way that almost seems anticipatory. Not a warning, but a knowing that Lilith ain’t walking away, but maybe- just maybe- I am.

            Standing out starkly in the middle of the deathly silent chaos that has descended over us, are two intensely blue eyes. I find those eyes, they find me, rising up from the woman who is kneeled in front of him, his sword plunged in her chest as light shuttered through her eyes and mouth.

            She falls to the floor and Castiel turns down to her with a grim expression.

            The world spins.

            Is it…

It’s … over?

For one excruciatingly long moment every emotion boils under my skin, and it _hurts_. I am _alive_ and I could cry. I could laugh.

            Sam’s voice sounds choked and wrong, and it cuts through me like glass, “Is it over? Just like that?”

            Castiel did not raise his eyes, “She is dead. The Deal has been revoked.” Then he is gone.

            It’s… anticlimactic. Just as Lilith’s prone form is anticlimactic.

            There was no evil monologue or sanctified shine of light that slammed into my chest and carved my soul back into my body, that re-inked my policy holder rights back over to me.

            It feels like the world had just… like I had just… My chest still hurt, my muscles were tired, and I still felt like I might die any second, like any moment was my last on Earth, but I did feel maybe a little bit lighter, like maybe the feeling of imminent death would ease over time.

            “Welp,” I sighed and holstered my knife, “I could eat a horse raw, let’s go find something to eat and pass out.”

            Sam looked over with a huff, slipping his knife away with a prissy look, but didn’t say anything, just followed me to the door. It wasn’t until I’m reaching for the doorknob that he enveloped me in a bear hug that I should have seen coming. His huge, mountain man arms trapping me.

            I indulged him for a moment by not struggling away and just letting relief and brotherly affection settle in the face of a traumatic experience. And then because he’s my brother and I love him and I’m not dead, I returned the hug but not without patting his back too hard because at the end of the day I’m still an asshole. “No chick flick moments, man,” I hiss for pretense sake only.

            “I love you, Dean.” Sam mumbles into my shoulder before pulling away.

            “I love you too, man,” and turn back to the door and wrench it open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry for the delay of this chapter. I just couldn't make up my mind. it figured i could attempt a happy ending for once or angst the fuck out and let Dean die. also i fought on whether to go on and on in pros for an ending or let it be anticlimactic on purpose. However, for worse or for better, i love this ending. and i shan't be back tracking on myself for the billionth time and rethink this. I like that the first chapter starts with Dean alone and this ends with Sam and him together. Brotherly love gets me in the feels every time.
> 
> if you are hoping for some Dean and Cas resolution? proceed to the epilogue when i post it, which should be later today or tomorrow. 
> 
>  
> 
> anywho, kudos or comments are appreciated. Please, shower me with words if you can.


	18. Epilogue

Six months later

 

            After a night of multiple grave desecrations as well as getting our asses kicked by pissed of spirits, Sam crashes out as soon as we get back to the motel room, and so do I, but I’m awake again not even an hour later.

I try to toss and turn but get nowhere. So, I just pull on some jeans and sneak out to get some fresh air. The sun is rising as I step out, but it’s still early January and my breath still fogs around me as I stuff my hands in my pockets. Tan catches my attention, and I turn and spot Castiel. He is leaned against the Impala’s driver door with his arms crossed.

            I’ve seen him a few times since Lilith. Or at least I think it was him. I would catch glimpse of tan trench coat or too blue eyes but when I turned, there would be nothing. Or maybe I was just imagining it all together.

            He rises his eyes to meet mine, as I shuffle over. “Hello Dean.”

            “Cas,” I nod.

            His eyes search mine for a moment and he looks like he might say something, but he stops himself, turning down to his scuffed dress shoes with a perplexed expression.

            I drop my line of sight too, watching the condensation drip off the chrome of my baby. “Thanks,” I stumble over my own thoughts before I clarify, “For… axing Lilith, I guess.”

            He nods, “It was quite difficult.”

            “Then thanks again.”

            Castiel shifts uncomfortably, “Don’t mention it.”

            I remember something and pull away quickly, and Cas blinks owlish at me as I walk over to the trunk and pull out a tin container from a hex proof box. “Ruby found this a couple months back.”

            Cas’ face sobered as his eyes fell on it. “Dean, do you know what is in there?”

            I nod, “Yup.” I put the hex box back and close the trunk as I hold the tin out for Castiel to grab.

            “Do you have any idea how dangerous it is?”

            Again, I nod. “We thought you could help us track down the owner?”

            The angel sighs wearily, “That will prove to be difficult.”

            “More difficult than rebelling against destiny?” I smirk knowingly.

            He tilts his head at me, his eyes serious at ever, “No, but it could be unpleasant.”

            The smirk morphs to a grin, “Then it should be another walk in the park for you, right?”

            Cas pockets the tin holding a human soul reluctantly, but the silence that follows is kind of suffocatingly awkward.

            Luckily, Castiel ends it by pushing off the car. “I think- I think I need to tell you a few things.”

            “Like what?” I ask, not quite sure where this is going. But his answer throws me off.

            “Jimmy, I think,” he glances up guiltily and adds, “I think about me too.”

            I clear my throat, “Spill then,” I say and am not surprised at the feeling of affection that raises up when Castiel tilts his head to the side in thought. Over the last few months I’ve given myself time to come to terms with my feelings for Jimmy- for Castiel. I have examined them in every way that I never gave myself a chance to do before.

            Cas gave me a second shot at life. Like, literally, I wouldn’t be here without him.

            In different kind of way, he gave Jimmy a second shot at life too. He’s helping people in so many ways now. Ruby has been scouring the veil and beyond for info on Cas and we learned about how by rebelling Heaven, by saving me and killing Lilith, Castiel put a stop to literal Armageddon. Jimmy was a part of that.

            Castiel shifts again but moves closer as he whispers. “I don’t think out in the open is the best place for this conversation.”

            I pull out my car keys and hold them up.

            He heads to the passenger seat and I get behind the wheel. I don’t bother starting the car, the heater hasn’t been working and I haven’t had a chance to fix it.

            The relative privacy seems to loosen Cas’ lips though. “Time on earth is different than in Heaven,” he starts, “While almost a decade has passed here, me and Jimmy have lived for millennia together in Heaven. He has made it quite clear that most of his experience in our coupling has been unpleasant, and even if I tried to protect him from what I could, I know he has changed beyond the man you knew.”

            His eyes find mine, “But, he thinks of you often, Dean. When I need advice, he tries to think as you would. When I am discouraged, he shows me what it was like to love you, to love your brother, shows me why I must keep fighting. He has loved you every day, and he wants you to know it.”

            My mind races with all the possibilities that his words raise, but he already told me all I needed to know, I already know what I want.

            Castiel- the creature who stole my life away- the creature who saved me from falling to hell- he was wrapped in such a beautiful heartbreak of a man- he was living beside the man I would have give anything for.

            “Can he see me, right now?” I ask suddenly, and when Castiel nods with just a slight tilt of his chin, I cup his cheek in my cold hand.

            “Can he feel me, right now?” His eyes drift shut, and he nods ever so slightly.

            I lean in, my lips ghosting over his mouth, but don’t press against them. I press my forehead to his instead, “I forgive you.”

            He gasps softly, and I feel tears roll over my fingers.

            “Dean-“

            I kiss him. And it doesn’t feel like coming home, it feels like maybe saying goodbye, and maybe… it feels like saying hello. Like the start of something longer. Like the first chapter to a new story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have made it this far, why not leave a comment? Honestly, even criticisms are welcome as long as they are constructive. 
> 
> I hope you got some entertainment by my inane/insane fic. it was difficult to write. Dean/Cas fics were the fics that introduced me to fan fiction, so i have a lot to compare this fic to and I just don't think it holds up as well against my favorite fics, but at the same time, I wanted the fic to still feel like me? i don't know. I know my writing isn't for everyone, especially because it is sooo hard to proof-read your own writing, but i hope at least there is SOME entertainment quality in it.
> 
> anyway, if you care to know, I'm working on a Spidey-Pool fic as we speak (My first ever!), because it was something to do while i pondered this fic. I am actually really excited for this one and it is already 30,000 words, which is like WOW. So, if you're intersted, keep and eye open i guess. Also, expect some (very) short Sam/Lucifer fics popping up because they are my OTP ya'll and the Lucifer angst runs strong in my veins.


End file.
